BRARY 

/ERSITY  OF 

LIFORNIA 

RVINE 


J 


THE    BROSS     LIBRARY 


The  Problem  of  the  Old  Testament, 
by  James  Orr,  D.D.  (Bross  Prize, 
1905) net  $1.50 

The  Bible:    Its  OriRin  and  Nature, 

by  Marcus  Dods,  D.D.  .    .    net  $1.00 

The  Bible  of  Nature,  by  J.  Arthur 

Thomson,  M.A net  $1.00 

The  Religjons  of  Modern  Syria  and 
Palestine,  by  Frederick  Jones 
Bliss,  Ph.D net  $1.50 

The  Sources  of  Relicfious  Insight,  by 

JosiAH  RovcE,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.    net  $1.25 


THE   BROSS   LIBRARY 

VOLUME  VI 


THE  BEOSS   LECTURES   .    .    1911 

THE  SOURCES  OF 
RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT 

LECTURES     DELIVERED    BEFORE 

LAKE   FOKEST   COLLEGE 

ON  THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE  LATE 

WILLIAM  BROSS 

BY 

JOSIAH  ROYCE,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHT 
IN  HABVABD  UNIVEB8ITT 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
NEW  YORK      ....      1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
THE  TRUSTEES  OF  LAKE  FOREST  UNIVERSITY 

Published  April.  1912 


THE  BROSS  FOUNDATION 

The  Bross  Lectures  are  an  outgrowth  of  a  fund 
established  in  1879  by  the  late  William  Bross,  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  Illinois  from  1866  to  1870.  De- 
siring some  memorial  of  his  son,  Nathaniel  Bross, 
who  died  in  1856,  Mr.  Bross  entered  into  an  agree- 
ment with  the  "Trustees  of  Lake  Forest  Univer- 
sity," whereby  there  was  finally  transferred  to  them 
the  sum  of  forty  thousand  dollars,  the  income  of 
which  was  to  accumulate  in  perpetuity  for  succes- 
sive periods  of  ten  years,  the  accumulations  of  one 
decade  to  be  spent  in  the  following  decade,  for  the 
purpose  of  stimulating  the  best  books  or  treatises 
"on  the  connection,  relation,  and  mutual  bearing  of 
any  practical  science,  the  history  of  our  race,  or  the 
facts  in  any  department  of  knowledge,  with  and  upon 
the  Christian  Religion."  The  object  of  the  donor 
was  to  "call  out  the  best  efforts  of  the  highest  talent 
and  the  ripest  scholarship  of  the  world  to  illustrate  from 
science,  or  from  any  department  of  knowledge,  and  to 
demonstrate  the  divine  origin  and  the  authority  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures;  and,  further,  to  show  how  both 
science  and  revelation  coincide  and  prove  the  existence, 


vi  The  Bross  Foundation 

the  providence,  or  any  or  all  of  the  attributes  of  the 
only  living  and  true  God,  'infinite,  eternal,  and  un- 
changeable in  His  being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  jus- 
tice, goodness,  and  truth.' " 

The  gift  contemplated  in  the  original  agreement 
of  1879  was  finally  consummated  in  1890.  The  first 
decade  of  the  accumulation  of  interest  having  closed 
in  1900,  the  Trustees  of  the  Bross  Fund  began  at 
this  time  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of  the  deed  of 
gift.  It  was  determined  to  give  the  general  title  of 
"The  Bross  Library"  to  the  series  of  books  pur- 
chased and  published  with  the  proceeds  of  the  Bross 
Fund.  In  accordance  with  the  express  wish  of  the 
donor,  that  the  "Evidences  of  Christianity"  of  his 
"  very  dear  friend  and  teacher,  Mark  Hopkins,  D.D.," 
be  purchased  and  "ever  numbered  and  known  as 
No.  1  of  the  series,"  the  Trustees  secured  the  copy- 
right of  this  work,  which  has  been  republished  in 
a  presentation  edition  as  Volume  I  of  the  Bross 
Library. 

The  trust  agreement  prescribed  two  methods  by 
which  the  production  of  books  and  treatises  of  the 
nature  contemplated  by  the  donor  was  to  be  stim- 
ulated : 

1.  The  Trustees  were  empowered  to  offer  one  or 
more  prizes  during  each  decade,  the  competition  for 
which  was  to  be  thrown  open  to  "  the  scientific  men, 
the  Christian  philosophers  and  historians  of  all  na- 


The  Bross  Foundation  vii 

tions."  In  accordance  with  this  provision,  a  prize 
of  $6,000  was  offered  in  1902  for  the  best  book  ful- 
filHng  the  conditions  of  the  deed  of  gift,  the  com- 
peting manuscripts  to  be  presented  on  or  before 
June  1,  1905.  The  prize  was  awarded  to  the  Rev- 
erend James  Orr,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Apologetics  and 
Systematic  Theology  in  the  United  Free  Church 
College,  Glasgow,  for  his  treatise  on  "The  Problem 
of  the  Old  Testament,"  which  was  published  in  1906 
as  Volume  III  of  the  Bross  Library.  The  next  de- 
cennial prize  will  be  awarded  in  1915,  and  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  conditions  may  be  obtained  from 
the  President  of  Lake  Forest  College. 

2.  The  Trustees  were  also  empowered  to  "select 
and  designate  any  particular  scientific  man  or  Chris- 
tian philosopher  and  the  subject  on  which  he  shall 
write,"  and  to  "agree  with  him  as  to  the  sum  he 
shall  receive  for  the  book  or  treatise  to  be  written." 
Under  this  provision  the  Trustees  have,  from  time 
to  time,  invited  eminent  scholars  to  deliver  courses 
of  lectures  before  Lake  Forest  College,  such  courses 
to  be  subsequently  published  as  volumes  in  the  Bross 
Library.  The  first  course  of  lectures,  on  "Obliga- 
tory Morality,"  was  delivered  in  May,  1903,  by  the 
Reverend  Francis  Landey  Patton,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
President  of  Princeton  Theological  Seminary.  The 
copyright  of  the  lectures  is  now  the  property  of  the 
Trustees  of  the  Bross  Fund.    The  second  course  of 


viii  The  Bross  Foundation 

lectures,  on  "The  Bible:  Its  Origin  and  Nature," 
was  delivered  in  May,  1904,  by  the  Reverend  Mar- 
cus Dods,  D.D.,  Professor  of  Exegetical  Theology  in 
New  College,  Edinburgh.  These  lectures  were  pub- 
lished in  1905  as  Volume  II  of  the  Bross  Library. 
The  third  course  of  lectures,  on  "The  Bible  of  Na- 
ture," was  delivered  in  September  and  October, 
1907,  by  Mr.  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.A.,  Regius 
Professor  of  Natural  History  in  the  University  of 
Aberdeen.  These  lectures  were  published  in  1908 
as  Volume  IV  of  the  Bross  Library.  The  fourth 
course  of  lectures,  on  "The  Religions  of  Modern 
Syria  and  Palestine,"  was  delivered  in  November 
and  December,  1908,  by  Frederick  Jones  BHss,Ph.D., 
of  Beirut,  Syria.  These  lectures  are  in  process  of 
publication  as  Volume  V  of  the  Bross  Library.  The 
fifth  course  of  lectures,  on  "  The  Sources  of  Reli- 
gious Insight,"  was  delivered  November  13  to  19, 
1911,  by  Professor  Josiah  Royce,  Ph.D.,  of  Har- 
vard University.  These  lectures  are  embodied  in 
the  present  volume. 

JOHN  SCHOLTE  NOLLEN, 

President  of  Lake  Forest  College. 

Lake  Forest,  Illinois, 
March,  1912. 


SUMMARY   OF  CONTENTS 


THE    RELIGIOUS    PROBLEM    AND    THE    HUMAN 

INDIVIDUAL 

PAGE 

Introductory  statement:  Limitations  of  the  undertaking        3 

I.  Definition  of  Insight,  and  of  Religious  Insight.     Arbitrary 

Hmitation  of  the  definition  of  religion  here  in  question. 
The  problem  traditionally  called  that  of  the  "salvation 
of  man"  as  the  main  problem  upon  which  the  sources  of 
insight  here  in  question  are  to  throw  light     ...        5 

II.  Generahsed  conception  of  "salvation."  Variety  of  forms 
in  which  this  conception  has  been  defined  and  used.  Re- 
sulting problem  regarding  the  meaning  of  human  life        9 

III.  Outline  of  the  programme  to  be  followed  in  the  subse- 
quent discussion 17 

IV.  The  concept  of  revelation,  and  the  "religious  paradox." 
First  statement  of  this  paradox 19 

V.  Individual  experience  and  the  "inner  light."  What  sort 
of  religious  insight  is  thus  to  be  gained.  Its  limitations. 
Prospect  of  an  appeal  to  other  sources  for  aid  ...      26 

is 


Summary  of  Contents 


n 

INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  AND  SOCIAL  EXPERI- 
ENCE AS  SOURCES  OF  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT 

I.  The  definition  of  the  religious  problem,  as  given  in  the 

former  lecture,  simplifies  our  undertaking  in  certain  re- 
spects, but  seems  to  complicate  it  in  others.  Review  of 
the  situation.    Outlook  for  further  study  ....      37 

II.  Outline  of  the  undertaking  of  the  present  lecture  .      41 

III.  The  motives  that  lead  to  religion  are  natural  and 
human.  Reasons  why  the  objects  of  religious  insight  are 
nevertheless  conceived  as  superhuman,  and,  as,  for  our 
individual  experience,  mysterious 44 

IV.  Can  these  objects  be  defined  as  realities  or  as  "values" 
that  our  social  experience  sufficiently  brings  to  our  knowl- 
edge? Social  experience  as  a  source  of  religious  insight. 
Its  scope  and  importance 54 

V.  The  inadequacy  of  social  experience  as  a  source  of  re- 
ligious insight.  Objections  urged  by  tradition,  by  recent 
individualism,  and  by  William  James 58 

VI.  The  social  consciousness  as  an  indispensable  factor  in 
religion.  The  consciousness  of  guilt  as  a  sense  of  loneU- 
ness.  Love  as  a  glimpse  of  sometliing  saving  and  divine. 
The  mystical  aspect  of  our  social  consciousness.  Despite 
this  mystical  aspect  of  all  our  better  social  life,  our  literal 
social  relations  are  never  sufficient  to  meet  the  religious 
need.  The  resulting  outlook  toward  still  further  sources 
of  enlightenment 65 


Summary  of  Contents  xi 


III 

THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  REASON 


I.  Current  objections  to  the  Reason  as  a  source  of  insight. 

Intuition  vs.  Reason.  Reason  vs.  Experience.  Usual 
view  of  the  reason  as  "abstract"  and  as  "analytic"  in 
its  procedure 80 

II.  But,  in  common  usage,  the  words  "reason"  and  "rea- 
sonable" often  refer  to  something  which  does  not  wholly 
depend  upon  "abstract  thinking"  and  mere  "analysis." 
The  "rule  of  reason."  The  concrete  use  of  the  reason. 
Reason  as  a  survey  of  the  connections  of  experience,  as 
synthetic,  and  as  involving  Ibroader  intuitions.  The 
alternative:  "Either  inarticulate  intuition  or  else  barren 
abstract  reasoning,"  is  falsely  stated.  The  antithesis: 
"Either  experience  or  else  reason,"  also  involves  failure 
to  see  how  both  may  be  combined.  Abstract  thinking 
as  a  means  to  an  end.  This  end  is  the  attainment  of  a 
new  and  broader  intuition.  Relation  between^  "becom- 
ing as  a  httle  child"  and  "putting  away  childish 
things" 84 

III.  Examples  of  the  synthetic  use  of  the  reason.  The  fe- 
cundity of  deductive  reasoning.  Novelties  discovered  by 
the  purely  deductive  sciences.  Reason  and  insight  in 
their  general  relations 93 

IV.  The  reason  and  the  "religious  paradox."  The  "para- 
dox" as  not  pecuhar  to  reUgion.  Common  sense  as  an 
appeal  to  standards  which  are  in  some  sense  superhmnan. 
No  human  individual  personally  experiences  or  verifies 
what  "human  experience,"  in  its  conceived  character  as 
an  integral  whole,  is  supposed  to  confirm.     The  concepts 


xii  Summary  of  Contents 

of  truth  and  error  are  dependent  upon  the  concept  of  an 
appeal  to  an  insight  which  no  human  individual  ever  pos- 
sesses. This  latter  concept  cannot  be  limited  to  the  mere 
world  of  "common  sense,"  but  must  be  universalised. 
The  whole  real  world  as  the  object  of  an  all-seeing  com- 
prehension of  facts  as  they  are.  Otherwise  our  opinions 
about  the  world  cannot  even  be  false.  Resulting  syn- 
thetic insight  of  the  reason.  The  world  as  the  object 
present  to  the  divine  wisdom 102 


IV 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  WILL 


I.  Historical  relations  of  philosophical  idealism.  General 
bearing  of  this  doctrine  upon  the  religious  interest,  and 
upon  the  history  of  reUgion 120 

n.  Objections  to  our  doctrine  of  the  reason  as  having  no 
value  for  life,  and  as  faiUng  to  help  toward  solving  the 
problem  of  salvation       129 

in.  First  answer  to  these  objections.  Reports  of  religious 
experience  that  show  some  relations  of  our  doctrine  to 
the  problem  in  question 131 

IV.  Relations  of  knowledge  and  will  in  general.  Statement 
of  the  position  of  Pragmatism.  Resulting  objections  to 
our  whole  doctrine  of  the  reason.  Truth  as  tested 
through  "workings."  Absolute  truth  as  indefinable. 
Pragmatism  as  taught  by  James  has  defined  its  own 
forms  and  tests  of  religious  insight.  These  forms  and 
tests  of  insight  are  asserted  to  be  superior  to  our  own. 
Religious  insight  as  saving,  but  as  also  empirical,  in 
James's  sense  of  that  term,  and  as  never  absolute  .     135 


Summary  of  Contents  xiii 

V.  Answer  to  pragmatism.  Our  agreement  with  some  of  its 
principal  positions.  Our  intelligence  as  the  counsellor  of 
our  actions.  The  point  where  we  are  at  issue  with  prag- 
matism. Reason  and  will,  their  general  relations.  Vin- 
dication of  the  position  taken  in  the  former  lecture  .     144 

VI.  The  problem  as  to  the  absoluteness  of  truth.  The  close 
relations  of  knowledge  and  action  do  not  throw  doubt 
upon,  but  rather  emphasise  this  absoluteness.  For  all 
action  is  expressed  in  individual  and  absolutely  irrevo- 
cable deeds.  These  deeds,  if  the  practical  issues  of  life 
are  sharply  defined,  remain  irrevocably  on  the  "score  of 
life"  as  "hits"  or  "misses."  This  irrevocable  character 
of  our  deeds  insures  the  fact  that  the  "counsels"  or 
"ideas"  of  the  intellect,  which  guide  our  individual  deeds, 
are  as  absolutely  "hits"  or  "misses"  as  are  the  deeds 
which  they  counsel.  Resulting  definition  of  absolute 
truth,  which  is  something  perfectly  concrete,  and  as  ac- 
cessible as  life  itself 151 

VII.  Application  of  this  view  to  the  definition  of  reality. 
The  real  world  as  a  life  of  counsels  and  of  deeds.  The 
divine  wisdom  and  the  divine  will  as  inseparable.  The 
eternal  as,  not  the  "timeless,"  but  the  "time-inclusive" 
insight  and  survey  of  life 158 


V 
THE  RELIGION  OF  LOYALTY 

Objections  to  all  the  foregoing  sources  of  insight  as  inade- 
quate,-— if  considered  as  separate  sources, — to  furnish  a 
basis  for  a  vital  and  positive  religion.  Need  of  a  new 
source.  Appeal  to  life  to  furnish  such  a  source.  The 
new  source  is  due  to  men's  efforts  to  solve  the  problem 
of  duty,  and  results  from  the  relations  between  the  re- 
ligious and  the  moral  motives 166 


xiv  Summary  of  Contents 

II.  The  historical  conflicts  between  religion  and  morality. 
The  relations  between  faith  and  works,  divine  grace  and 
moral  strenuousness.  Review  of  these  conflicts.  Need 
of  some  unifying  motive 170 

III.  Analysis  of  the  bases  of  morals.  Individual  and  social 
elements  in  the  idea  of  duty.  Resulting  first  statement 
of  the  search  for  a  moral  principle.  Incompleteness  of 
this  first  statement 182 

IV.  The  contribution  of  the  reason  to  the  definition  of  a 
moral  principle.  Practical  inadequacy  of  the  result  thus 
far  attained 186 

V.  The  loyal  spirit  illustrated 190 

VI.  The  motives  of  Loyalty  analysed.  Definition  of  what 
is  meant  by  a  Cause  to  which  one  is  loyal.  The  princi- 
pal of  Loyalty,  stated  and  developed.  The  religious 
aspect  of  the  loyal  spirit.  The  finding  of  the  cause  is 
not  due  to  the  will  of  the  loyal  being;  his  service  of  the 
cause  is  due  to  his  will.  Resulting  reconciliation  of  the 
moral  and  religious  motives.  The  cause  as  a  free  gift  of 
grace.  The  service  as  one's  own.  The  absoluteness  of 
the  principle  of  loyalty.  The  solution  of  the  "religious 
paradox" 197 


VI 

THE  RELIGIOUS  MISSION  OF  SORROW 


I.  The  consideration  of  Loyalty  leads  over  to  a  new  problem. 
"Tribulation"  as  a  hindrance  to  religious  insight.  Rea- 
sons why  this  is  the  case,  introduced  by  a  statement  re- 
garding our  experience  of  evil.  The  principle  that  "Evil 
ought  to  be  altogether  put  out  of  existence"  stated,  and 


Summary  of  Contents  xv 

the  reasons  therefore  indicated.  Man  as  in  intent  a 
"destroyer  of  evU."  Our  natural  interest  in  destructive 
prowess 215 

II.  Resulting  situation  in  which  religion  seems  to  be  placed. 
Religion  appears  (1)  To  presuppose  as  well  as  to  experi- 
ence a  vast  range  of  evils  in  the  real  world;  (2)  To  de- 
pend upon  the  assurance  that  the  ruling  principle  of  the 
real  world  is  good;  and  (3)  To  agree  with  morality  in 
making  use  of  the  principle  that  "Evil  ought  to  be  alto- 
gether put  out  of  existence."  Resulting  apparent  di- 
lemma: Religion  seems  either  superfluous  or  else  doomed 
to  failure 219 

III.  Illustrations  of  the  dilemma  as  it  appears  in  practical 
life,  and  as  a  barrier  in  the  way  of  the  religious  life.  Need 
of  an  abstract  statement  of  the  dilemma  as  a  means  of 
discounting  our  emotional  confusions 227 

IV.  Reconsideration  of  the  principle  that  has  led  to  the 
dilemma.  Not  all  evils  equally  worthy  of  aboHtion. 
Idealised  ills.  Definition  of  Sorrow.  The  process  and 
the  results  of  idealisation.  Creative  synthesis  vs.  mere 
destruction.  The  winning  over  and  conquest  of  ill. 
Strength  of  spirit  involved  in  such  creative  synthesis, 
which,  in  its  turn,  is  never  passive,  but  always  morally 
active.  Suggestions  toward  a  solution  of  the  dilemma. 
Sorrow  as  a  source  of  religious  insight       ....     232 

V.  A  recent  literary  instance  of  such  insight  ....    241 

VI.  Summary  and  suggestion  of  possible  results  of  such  in- 
sight     250 


xvi  Summary  of  Contents 


vn 

THE  UNITY  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE 
INVISIBLE  CHURCH 

I.  The  sense  in  which  the  rehgious  objects  are  "superhu- 

man" and  "supernatural."  Our  present  "form  of  con- 
sciousness" and  the  "form  of  consciousness"  that  be- 
longs to  the  "Spirit"  in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  is 
here  used 257 

II.  The  Church,  visible  and  invisible 272 

III.  The  membership  of  the  invisible  church      .    .    .    282 

IV.  Conununion  with  the  invisible  church      ....    291 

V.  The  Spiritual  Gifts  of  the  invisible  church.  Charity, 
Tolerance  and  Loyalty  as  the  Fruits  of  the  Spirit.  The 
work  of  the  invisible  church 293 


THE   RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM  AND  THE 
HUMAN  INDIVIDUAL 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PROBLEM  AND  THE 
HUMAN  INDIVIDUAL 

My  first  task  must  be  to  forestall  possible  disap- 
pointments regarding  the  scope  of  our  inquiry.  In 
seven  lectures  upon  a  vast  topic  very  little  can  at 
best  be  accomplished.  I  want  to  tell  you  at  the  out- 
set what  are  some  of  the  limitations  to  which  I  pro- 
pose to  subject  my  undertakings. 

I  come  before  you  as  a  philosophical  inquirer  ad- 
dressing a  general  audience  of  thoughtful  people. 
This  definition  of  my  office  implies  from  the  out- 
set very  notable  limitations.  As  a  philosophical  in- 
quirer I  am  not  here  to  preach  to  you,  but  to  appeal 
to  your  own  thoughtfulness.  Again,  since  my  in- 
quiry concerns  the  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  you 
will  understand,  I  hope,  that  I  shall  not  undertake 
to  present  to  you  any  extended  system  of  religious 
doctrine.  Upon  sources  of  insight  we  are  to  con- 
centrate our  attention.  What  insight  may  be  ob- 
tained from  those  sources  we  shall  only  attempt  to 
indicate  in  the  most  general  way,  not  at  length  to 
expound.  What  theologians  would  call  a  system  of 
dogmas,  I  shall  not  undertake  to  define.     What 

3 


4  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

philosophers  would  regard  as  a  comprehensive  phi- 
losophy of  religion  I  shall  have  no  time  to  develop 
within  our  limits.  I  am  to  make  some  comments 
upon  the  ways  in  which  religious  truths  can  become 
accessible  to  men.  What  truths  thus  become  ac- 
cessible you  must  in  large  measure  discover  by  your 
own  appeal  to  the  sources  of  which  I  shall  try  to 
tell  you. 

These  somewhat  narrow  limitations  may  have,  as 
I  hope,  their  correlative  advantages.  Since  I  am  to 
speak  of  sources,  rather  than  of  creeds  or  of  philos- 
ophies, I  may  be  able  to  appeal  to  people  of  decidedly 
various  opinions  without  directing  undue  attention 
to  the  motives  that  divide  them.  I  need  not  pre- 
suppose that  my  hearers  are  of  the  company  of 
believers  or  of  the  company  of  doubters;  and  if 
they  are  believers,  it  matters  little,  for  my  present 
purpose,  to  what  household  of  the  faith  they  belong. 
I  am  not  here  to  set  people  right  as  to  matters  of 
doctrine,  but  rather  to  point  out  the  way  that,  if 
patiently  followed,  may  tend  to  lead  us  all  toward 
light  and  unity  of  doctrine.  If  you  listen  to  my  later 
lectures  you  may,  indeed,  be  led  to  ask  various  ques- 
tions about  my  own  creed,  which,  in  these  lectures, 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  answer.  But  I  shall  be  con- 
tent if  what  I  say  helps  any  of  you,  however  little, 
toward  finding  for  yourselves  answers  to  your  own 
religious  questions. 


/ 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight 


The  limitations  of  my  task,  thus  indicated,  will 
become  still  clearer  if  I  next  try  to  define  the  term 
Religious  Insight  as  I  intend  it  to  be  here  under- 
stood. 

And  first  I  must  speak  briefly  of  the  word  Insight. 
By  insight,  whatever  the  object  of  insight  may  be, 
one  means  some  kind  of  knowledge.  But  the  word 
insight  has  a  certain  richness  of  significance  whereby 
we  distinguish  what  we  call  insight  from  knowledge 
in  general.  A  man  knows  the  way  to  the  oflSce 
where  he  does  his  business.  But  if  he  is  a  success- 
ful man,  he  has  insight  into  the  nature  and  rules  of 
his  business  and  into  the  means  whereby  success  is 
attained.  A  man  knows  the  names  and  the  faces 
of  his  acquaintances.  But  he  has  some  sort  of 
insight  into  the  characters  of  his  familiar  friends. 
As  these  examples  suggest,  insight  is  a  name  for  a 
special  sort/ and  degree  of  knowledge.  Insight  is 
knowledge  that  unites  a  certain  breadth  of  range, 
a  certain  wealth  of  acquaintance  together  with  a 
certain  unity  and  coherence  of  grasp,  and  with  a 
certain  closeness  of  intimacy  whereby  the  one  who 
has  insight  is  brought  into  near  touch  with  the 
objects  of  his  insight.  To  repeat :  Insight  is  knowl-  v 
edge  that  makes  us  aware  of  the  unity  of  many 
facts  in  one  whole,  and  that  at  the  same  time  brings 
us  into  intimate  personal  contact  with  these  facts 


6  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

and  with  the  whole  wherein  they  are  united.  The 
three  marks  of  insight  are  breadth  of  range,  cohe- 
rence and  unity  of  view,  and  closeness  of  personal 
touch.  A  man  may  get  some  sort  of  sight  of  as 
many  things  as  you  please.  But  if  we  have  insight, 
we  view  some  connected  whole  of  things,  be  this 
whole  a  landscape  as  an  artist  sees  it,  or  as  a  wanderer 
surveys  it  from  a  mountain  top,  or  be  th\s  whole  an 
organic  process  as  a  student  of  the  sciences  of  life 
aims  to  comprehend  it,  or  a  human  character  as  an 
appreciative  biographer  tries  to  portray  it.  Again, 
we  have  insight  when,  as  I  insist,  our  acquaintance 
with  our  object  is  not  only  coherent  but  close  and 
personal.     Insight   you    cannot   obtain    at    second 

J  -  hand.     You  can  learn  by  rote  and  by  hearsay  many 
things;  but  if  you  have  won  insight,  you  have  won 
it  not  without  the  aid  of  your  own  individual  ex- 
perience.    Yet  experience  is  not  by  itself  suflBcient 
,   to  produce  insight  unless  the  coherence  and  the- 

^    breadth  of  range  which  I  have  just  mentioned  be 
added. 

Insight  may  belong  to  the  most  various  sorts  of 
^*  people  and  may  be  concerned  with  the  most  di- 
verse kinds  of  objects.  Many  very  unlearned  peo- 
ple have  won  a  great  deal  of  insight  into  the  matters 
that  intimately  concern  them.  Many  very  learned 
people  have  attained  almost  no  insight  into  any- 
thing. Insight  is  no  peculiar  possession  of  the 
students  of  any  technical  specialty  or  of  any  one 
calling.    Men  of  science  aim  to  reach  insight  into 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  7 

the  x)bjects  of  their  researches;  men  of  affairs,  or 
men  of  practical  efficiency,  however  plain  or  humble 
their  calling,  may  show  insight  of  a  very  high  type, 
whenever  they  possess  knowledge  that  bears  the 
marks  indicated,  knowledge  that  is  intimate  and 
personal  and  that  involves  a  wide  survey  of  the 
unity  of  many  things. 

Such,  then,  is  insight  in  general.  But  I  am  to 
speak  of  Religious.  Insight.  Religious  insight  must 
be  distinguished  from  other  sorts  of  insight  by  its 
object,  or  by  its  various  characteristic  objects. 
Now,  I  have  no  time  to  undertake,  in  this  opening 
discourse,  any  adequate  definition  of  the  term  Re- 
ligion or  of  the  features  that  make  an  object  a 
religious  object.  Religion  has  a  long  and  complex 
history,  and  a  tragic  variety  of  forms  and  of  objects 
of  belief.  And  so  religion  varies  prodigiously  in  its 
characteristics  from  age  to  age,  from  one  portion  of 
the  human  race  to  another,  from  one  individual  to 
another.  If  we  permitted  ourselves  to  define  re- 
ligion so  as  merely  to  insist  upon  what  is  common  to 
all  its  forms,  civilised  and  savage,  our  definition 
would  tend  to  become  so  inclusive  and  so  attenuated 
as  to  be  almost  useless  for  the  purposes  of  the  pres- 
ent brief  inquiry.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  defined 
religion  so  as  to  make  the  term  denote  merely  what 
the  believer  in  this  or  in  that  creed  thinks  of  as  his 
own  religion,  we  should  from  the  start  cut  ourselves 
off  from  the  very  breadth  of  view  which  I  myself 
suppose  to  be  essential  to  the  highest  sort  of  re- 


\ 


8  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ligious  Insight.     Nobody  fully  comprehends  what 

religion  is  who  imagines  that  his  own  religion  is  the 

only  genuine  religion.    As  a  fact,  I  shall  therefore 

abandon  at  present  the  effort  to  give  a  technically 

finished  definition  of  what  constitutes  religion,  or 

of  the  nature  of  the  religious  objects.    I  shall  here 

V.  limit   myself   to   a   practically   useful   preliminary 

ipention  of  a  certain  feature  that,  for  my  present 

purpose,  shall  be  viewed  as  the  essential  character- 

..  istic  of  religion,  and  of  religious  objects,  so  far  as 

■1^  these  lectures  propose  to  discuss  religion. 

The  higher  religions  of  mankind — religions  such 
as  Buddhism  and  Christianity — have  had  in  com- 
mon this  notable  feature,  namely,  that  they  have 
been  concerned  with  the  problem  of  the  Salvation 
of  Man.  This  is  sometimes  expressed  by  saying 
that  they  are  redemptive  religions — religions  inter- 
ested in  freeing  mankind  from  some  vast  and  uni- 
versal burden,  of  imperfection,  of  unreasonableness, 
of  evil,  of  misery,  of  fate,  of  unworthiness,  or  of  sin. 
Now,  for  my  present  purposes,  this  interest  in  the 
salvation  of  man  shall  be  made,  in  these  lectures,  the 
essential  feature  of  religion  in  so  far  as  religion  shall 
here  be  dealt  with.  The  religious  objects,  whatever 
they  otherwise  may  prove  to  be,  shall  be  defined  as 
objects  such  that,  when  we  know  them,  and  in  case 
we  can  know  them,  this  knowledge  of  them  helps 
to  show  us  the  way  of  salvation.  The  central  and 
essential  postulate  of  whatever  religion  we,  in  these 
lectures,  are  to  consider,  is  the  postulate  that  man 


Sources  of  Religious  hisight  9 

needs  to  he  saved.  And  religious  insight  shall  for  us 
mean  insight  into  the  way  of  salvation  and  intoy 
those  objects  whereof  the  knowledge  conduces  to 
salvation. 

This  preliminary  definition,  thus  somewhat  ab- 
ruptly stated,  will  arouse  in  the  minds  of  many  of 
you  serious  doubts  and  questions.  And  only  the 
whole  course  of  our  study  can  serve  to  furnish  such 
answer  to  these  doubts  and  questions  as  I  can  hope 
to  supply  to  you.  Yet  a  further  word  or  two  of 
purely  preliminary  explanation  may  help  to  prevent 
your  thoughts,  at  this  point,  from  being  turned  in  a  ^ 
wrong  direction.  I  have  defined  religious  insight  as 
insight  into  the  way  of  salvation.  But  what,  you 
may  ask,  do  I  mean  by  the  salvation  of  man  or  by 
man's  need  of  salvation?  To  this  question  I  still 
owe  you  a  brief  preliminary  answer. 

II 

The  word  salvati(Hi  naturally  first  suggests  to 
your  own  mind  ^jertain  familiar  traditions  which 
have  played  a  great  part  in  the  history  of  ChristiSm- 
ity.  I  do  not  mean  to  make  light  of  those  tradi- 
tions nor  yet  of  the  significance  of  the  historical 
Christianity  to  which  they  belong.  Yet,  as  I  have 
already  told  you,  these  lectures  will  have  no  dog- 
matic religious  system  to  expound,  and,  for  that 
very  reason,  will  not  attempt  the  grave  task  of  any 
extended  discussion  of  Christianity.     I  propose  at 


X 


10  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

some  future  time,  not  in  these  lectures,  but  upon  a 
wholly  different  occasion,  to  attempt  an  applica- 
tion of  some  of  the  principles  that  underlie  the 
present  lectures  to  the  special  problems  which 
Christianity  offers  to  the  student  of  religion.  But 
these  lectures  are  not  to  be  directly  concerned  with 
this  special  task  of  expounding  or  interpreting  or 
estimating  Christian  doctrines.  I  repeat:  My  lim- 
ited undertaking  is  to  consider  in  company  with 
you  the  sources  of  religious  insight,  not  the  con- 
tents of  any  one  religion.  You  \\ill  understand, 
therefore,  that  when  I  define  religious  insight  as 
insight  into  the  way  of  salvation,  I  use  the  word 
salvation  in  a  sense  that  I  wish  you  to  conceive  in 
terms  much  more  general  than  those  which  certain 
Christian  traditions  have  made  familiar  to  you. 

I  have  already  said  that  both  Buddhism  and 
Christianity  are  interested  in  the  problem  of  the 
salvation  of  mankind,  and  share  in  common  the 
postulate  that  man  needs  saving.  I  could  have 
named  still  other  of  the  world's  higher  religions 
which  are  characterised  by  the  same  great  interest. 
Had  I  the  time  and  the  technical  knowledge,  I 
could  show  you  how  far  backward  in  time,  how  deep 
down  into  the  very  essence  of  some  of  the  religions 
that  seem  to  us  extremely  primitive,  this  concern 
for  man's  salvation,  and  for  a  knowledge  of  the  way 
of  salvation,  extends.  But  the  history  of  religion 
does  not  fall  within  my  present  scope.  And  to  the 
varieties  of  religious  doctrine  I  can  only  allude  by 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  11 

way  of  illustration.  Yet  the  mere  mention  of  such 
varieties  may  serve,  I  hope,  to  show  you  that  whole 
nations  and  races,  and  that  countless  millions  of 
men,  have  conceived  of  their  need  for  salvation, 
and  have  sought  the  way  thereto,  while  they  have 
known  nothing  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  while  they 
have  not  in  the  least  been  influenced  by  those  dog- 
mas regarding  the  fall  of  man,  the  process  of  re- 
demption, or  the  future  destiny  of  the  soul  of  man 
which  are  brought  to  your  minds  when  you  hear 
the  word  salvation. 

Be  willing,  then,  to  generalise  our  term  and  to 
dissociate  the  idea  of  salvation  from  some  of  the 
settings  in  which  you  usually  have  conceived  it. 
Since  there  is  thus  far  in  our  discussion  no  question 
as  to  whose  view  of  the  way  of  salvation  is  the  true 
view,  you  can  only  gain  by  such  a  dissociation,  even 
if  it  be  but  a  temporary  effort  at  generalisation. 
The  cry  of  humanity  for  salvation  is  not  a  matter 
of  any  one  time  or  faith.  The  pathos  of  that  cry 
will  become  only  the  deeper  when  you  learn  to  see 
why  it  is  so  universal  a  cry.  The  truth,  if  there  be 
any  accessible  truth,  regarding  the  genuine  way  of 
salvation  will  become  only  the  more  precious  to 
you  when  you  know  by  how  widely  sundered  paths 
the  wanderers  in  the  darkness  of  this  world  have 
sought  for  the  saving  light. 

So  let  me  next  attempt  to  define  salvation  in 
a  suflSciently  general  sense.  Man  is  an  infinitely 
needy  creature.     He  wants  endlessly  numerous  spe- 


12  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

cial  things — food,  sleep,  pleasure,  fellowship,  power 
in  all  its  Protean  shapes,  peace  in  all  its  elusive 
forms,  love  in  its  countless  disguises — in  brief,  all 
the  objects  of  desire.  But  amongst  these  infinitely 
manifold  needs,  the  need  for  salvation  stands  out, 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  feel  it,  as  a  need  that  is 
peculiarly  paramount,  so  that,  according  to  their 
view  of  life,  to  desire  salvation  is  to  long  for  some 
pearl  o{  great  price,  for  the  sake  of  which  one 
would  be  ready  to  sell  all  that  one  has.  The  idea 
that  man  needs  salvation  depends,  in  fact,  upon  two 
simpler  ideas  whereof  the  main  idea  is  constituted. 
The  first  is  the  idea  that  there  is  some  end  or  aim  of 
human  life  which  is  more  hnportant  tJian  all  other 
aims,  so  that,  hy  comparison  with  this  aim  all  else  is 
secondary  and  subsidiary,  and  perhaps  relatively  unim- 
portant, or  even  vain  and  empty.^  The  other  idea  is 
this:  That  man  as  he  now  is,  or  as  he  naturally  is,  is 
in  .great  danger  of  so  missing  this  highest  aim  as  to 
render  his  whole  life  a  senseless  failure  by  virtue  of 
thus  coming  short  of  his  trus  goal.  Whoever  has  been 
led  to  conceive  human  life  in  these  terms,  namely,  to 
think  that  there  is  for  man  some  sort  of  highest 
good,  by  contrast  with  which  all  other  goods  are 
relatively  trivial,  and  that  man,  as  he  is,  is  in  great 
danger  of  losing  this  highest  good,  so  that  his  great- 
est need  is  of  escape  from  this  danger — whoever,  I 
say,  thus  views  our  life,  holds  that  man  needs  sal- 
vation. 
Now,  I  beg  you  to  observe  that  such  a  view  of 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  13 

life  as  this  is  in  no  wise  dependent  upon  any  one 
dogma  as  to  a  future  state  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment, as  to  heaven  and  hell,  as  to  the  fall  of  man,  or 
as  to  any  point  of  the  traditional  doctrine  of  this 
or  of  that  special  religion.  Philosophers  and  proph- 
ets, and  even  cynics,  learned  and  unlearned  men, 
saints  and  sinners,  sages  and  fanatics.  Christians 
and  non-Christians,  believers  in  immortality  and 
believers  that  death  ends  all,  may  agree,  yes,  have 
agreed,  in  viewing  human  life  in  the  general  spirit  ' 
just  characterised.  A  very  few  examples  may  serve 
to  show  how  wide-spread  this  longing  for  salvation 
has  been  and  how  manifold  have  also  been  its 
guises. 

I  have  already  mentioned  Buddhism  as  a  religion 
that  seeks  the  salvation  of  man.  The  central  idea 
of  the  original  southern  Buddhism,  as  you  know,  is 
pessimistic.  Man,  so  the  Buddha  and  his  earlier 
followers  taught,  is  naturally  doomed  to  misery. 
This  doom  is  so  pervasive  and  so  fatal  that  you  in 
vain  would  seek  to  escape  from  it  through  any 
luxuries,  or,  so  to  speak,  excesses,  of  good  fortune.  '* 
On  the  throne  or  in  the  dungeon,  wealthy  or  a  beg- 
gar, man  is  always  (so  the  Buddhist  insists)  the 
prisoner  of  desire,  a  creature  of  longing,  consumed 
by  the  fires  of  passion — and  therefore  miserable. 
For  man's  will  is  insatiable,  and  hence  always  dis- 
appointed. Now  we  are  here  not  in  the  least  con- 
cerned with  estimating  this  pessimism.  This  gloomy 
ancient  Indian  view  of  existence  may  be  as  false  as 


14  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

you  please.  Enough — millions  of  men  have  held  it, 
and  therefore  have  longed  for  salvation.  For  if,  as 
the  early  Buddhists  held,  the  evil  of  human  life  is 
thus  pervasive  and  paramount,  then  the  aim  of 
escaping  from  such  fatal  ill  must  be  deeper  and  more 
important  than  any  economic  aim  or  than  any 
intent  to  satisfy  this  or  that  special  desire.  If  man 
is  naturally  doomed  to  misery,  the  escape  from  this 
natural  doom  must  be  at  once  the  hardest  and  the 
highest  of  human  tasks.  The  older  Buddhism  un- 
dertakes to  accomplish  this  task  by  teaching  the 
way  to  "the  extinction  of  desire"  and  Iby  thus 
striking  at  "the  root  of  all  misery."  In  Nirvana, 
,  those  who  have  attained  the  goal  have  won  their 
way  beyond  all  desire.  They  return  not.  They 
are  free  from  the  burden  of  human  existence.  Such 
is  one  view  of  the  need  and  the  way  of  salvation. 

If  we  turn  in  a  wholly  different  direction,  we  find 
Plato,  in  the  great  TayXh.  of  the  "Phsedrus,"  in  the 
arguments  and  myths  of  the  "Republic,"  and  in 
various  other  famous  passages,  defining  what  he 
regards  as  the  true  goal  of  the  human  soul,  por- 
traying how  far  we  have  naturally  come  short  of 
that  goal,  and  pointing  out  a  way  of  salvation. 
And,  in  another  age,  Marcus  Aurelius  writes  his 

Thoughts"  in  the  interest  of  defining  the  end  for 
which  it  is  worth  while  to  live,  the  bondage  and 
failure  in  which  the  foolish  man  actually  lives,  and 
the  way  out  of  our  foolishness. 

But  are  the  partisans  of  ways  of  salvation  con- 


\ 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  15 

fined  to  such  serious  and  unworldly  souls  as  were 
the  I  eajly  Buddhists  and  the  ancient  moralists? 
No;  turn  to  modern  times.  Read  the  stanzas  into 
which  Fitzgerald,  in  a  highly  modern  spirit,  very 
freely  translated  the  expressions  of  an  old  Persian 
poet — Omar  Khayyam;  or,  again,  read  the  great 
programme  of  Nietzsche's  ethical  and  religious  re- 
volt as  set  forth  only  a  few  years  since  in  his  "  Zara- 
thustra";  or  recall  Goethe's  "Faust";  remember 
even  Byron's  "Manfred";  and  these  few  instances 
from  amongst  a  vast  wealth  of  more  or  less  recent 
literary  examples  will  show  you  that  the  idea  of 
salvation  and  the  search  for  salvation  are  matters 
that  belong  to  no  one  type  of  piety  or. of  poetry  or 
of  philosophy.  Cynics  and  rebels,  ancient  sages  and 
men  who  are  in  our  foremost  rank  of  time,  can 
agree,  and  have  agreed,  in  maintaining  that  there  is 
some  goal  of  life,  conceivable,  or  at  least  capable  of 
being,  however  dimly,  appreciated — some  goal  that, 
if  accessible,  would  fulfil  and  surpass  our  lesser  de- 
sires, or  would  save  us  from  our  bondage  to  lesser 
ills,  while  this  goal  is  something  that  we  naturally 
miss,  or  that  we  are  in  great  danger  of  missing — so 
that,  whatever  else  we  need,  we  need  to  be  saved 
-from  this  pervasive  and  overmastering  danger  of 
failure. 

"Oh  love,  could  thou  and  I  with  fate  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry' scheme  of  things  entire, 

Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits  and  then,  ^ 

Remould  it  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire?" 


16  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Thus  Fitzgerald's  Omar  expresses,  in  rebellious 
speech,  the  need  of  salvation.  "What  is  your 
greatest  hour?" — so  begins  Nietzsche's  Zarathustra 
in  his  opening  address  to  the  people.  And  he 
replies:  "It  is  the  hour  of  your  great  contempt" — 
the  hour,  so  he  goes  on  to  explain,  when  you  de- 
spise all  the  conventional  values  and  trivial  max- 
ims of  a  morality  and  a  religion  that  have  become 
for  you  merely  traditional,  conventional,  respecta- 
ble, but  infinitely  petty.  Now,  if  you  observe  that 
St.  Paul's  epistle  to  the  Romans,  despite  its  utterly 
different  religious  ideas,  begins  with  an  analogous 
condemnation  of  the  social  world  as  it  was,  or  as  it 
always  naturally  is,  you  may  learn  to  appreciate 
the  universal  forms  in  which  the  need  for  salvation 
comes  to  men's  consciousness,  however  various  their 
creed.  Swinburne's  well-known  chorus  sums  up 
man's  life  as  it  is,  thus: 

"He  weaves  and  is  clothed  with  derision, 
Sows,  and  he  shall  not  reap; 
His  life  is  a  watch  or  a  vision 
Between  a  sleep  and  a  sleep." 

Such,  then,  is  man's  need.  "Here  we  have  no  con- 
tinuing city,  we  seek  a  city  out  of  sight" — such  is 
another  expression  of  this  same  need.  What  I  ask 
you  to  do,  just  here,  is  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  this 
universal  form  of  the  need  for  salvation.  As  you 
see,  there  is  always  a  certain  element  of  gloom  and 
tragedy  involved  in  the  first  conception  of  this  need. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  17 

All  depends,  for  the  further  fortunes  of  one's  re- 
ligious consciousness,  upon  whether  or  not  one  can 
get  insight  into  the  true  nature  of  this  need  and 
into  the  way  toward  the  needed  salvation. 


Ill 

Religious  Insight  means  then,  for  my  present  pur- 
poses, insight  into  the  need  and  into  the  way  of  salva- 
tion. If  the  problem  of  human  salvation  has  never 
come  home  to  your  mind,  as  a  genuine  problem  of 
life  and  of  experience,  you  will  feel  no  interest  in 
religion  in  the  sense  to  which  the  present  lectures 
will  arbitrarily  confine  the  term.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  your  live  personal  experience  has  made  you 
intimate  with  any  form  or  phase  of  this  problem  of 
the  pathetic  need  and  cry  of  man  for  salvation, 
then  I  care  not,  at  least  at  the  outset  of  these  dis- 
courses, whether  you  have  thought  of  this  problem 
in  theological  or  in  secular,  in  reverent  or  in  rebel- 
lious, or  in  cynical  terms,  whether  you  have  tried  to 
solve  it  by  scientific  or  by  sentimental  or  by  tradi- 
tional means,  or  whether  the  problem  now  takes 
shape  in  your  mind  as  a  problem  to  be  dealt  with  in 
a  spirit  of  revolt  or  of  conformity,  of  sceptical 
criticism  or  of  intuitive  faith,  of  hope  or  of  despair. 
What  we  want  is  insight,  if  insight  be  possible,  into 
the  way  of  salvation.  The  problem  with  which 
these  lectures  are  to  deal  is :  What  are  the  sources  of 
such  insight? 


\ 


18  Sources  of  Religimis  Insight 

At  the  outset  of  our  effort  to  deal  with  this  prob- 
lem, I  shall  try  to  show  how  the  experience  of  the 
individual  human  being  is  related  to  the  issues  that 
are  before  us.  That  is,  in  this  and  in  part  of  our 
next  lecture,  I  shall  discuss  the  sense  in  which  the 
individual  experience  of  any  one  of  us  is  a  source 
of  insight  into  the  need  and  the  way  of  salvation. 
Hereby  we  shall  erelong  be  led  to  our  social  experi- 
ence as  a  source  of  still  richer  religious  insight. 
And  from  these  beginnings  we  shall  go  on  to  a  study 
of  sources  which  are  at  once  developments  from  these 
first  mentioned  sources,  and  sources  that  are  much 
more  significant  than  these  first  ones  would  be  if 
they  could  be  isolated  from  such  developments. 
I  ask  you  to  follow  my  discourse  in  the  same  spirit 
of  tolerance  for  various  opinions  and  with  the  same 
effort  to  understand  the  great  common  features  and 
origins  of  the  religious  consciousness — with  the  same 
spirit  and  effort,  I  say,  by  which  I  have  tried  to  be 
guided  in  what  I  have  already  said  to  you  in  this 
introduction.  It  is  always  easy  to  see  that,  in 
religion,  one  man  thinks  thus  and  another  man 
thinks  otherwise,  and  that  no  man  knows  as  much 
as  we  all  wish  to  know.  But  I  want  to  lay  stress 
upon  those  perennial  sources  from  which  human 
insight  has  flowed  and  for  ages  in  the  future  will  con- 
tinue to  flow.  To  understand  what  these  sources  are 
will  help  us,  I  believe,  toward  unity  of  spirit,  toward 
co-operation  in  the  midst  of  all  our  varieties  of  faith, 
and  toward  insight  itself  and  the  fruits  of  insight. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  19 


IV 

I  can  best  undertake  my  brief  initial  study  of  the 
way  in  which  the  experience  of  the  individual  human 
being  is  a  source  of  religious  insight  by  meeting  an 
objection  that  a  reading  of  my  printed  programme 
may  have  aroused  in  the  minds  of  some  of  you. 
My  list  of  the  sources  of  religious  insight,  as  con- 
tained in  the  titles  of  these  lectures,  makes  no  ex- 
press reference  to  a  source  which  some  of  you  will  be 
disposed  to  regard  as  the  principal  source,  namely, 
Revelation.  Here,  some  of  you  will  already  have 
said,  is  a  very  grave  omission.  Man's  principal 
insight  into  the  need  and  the  way  of  salvation 
comes,  and  must  come,  you  will  say,  from  without, 
from  the  revelation  that  the  divine  power  which 
saves,  makes  of  itself,  through  Scripture  or  through 
the  Church.  Now,  so  far  as  this  thesis  forms  part 
of  the  doctrine  of  a  particular  religion,  namely,  in 
your  own  case,  of  Christianity,  I  shall  in  these 
lectures  omit  any  direct  discussion  of  that  thesis. 
The  reason  for  the  omission  I  have  already  pointed 
out.  These  lectures  undertake  a  limited  task,  and 
must  be  judged  by  their  chosen  limitations.  But 
in  so  far  as  revelation  is  a  general  term,  meaning 
whatever  intercourse  there  may  be  between  the 
divine  and  the  human,  all  these  lectures,  in  dealing 
with  sources  of  religious  insight,  will  be  dealing  with 
processes  of  revelation.    And  in  what  sense  this 


I 


20  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

assertion  is  true  we  shall  see  as  we  go  on  with  our 
undertaking.  This  first  mention  of  revelation  en- 
ables me,  however,  both  to  state  and  to  answer  the 
objection  to  my  programme  which  I  have  just  men- 
tioned, and  in  doing  so  to  vindicate  for  the  expe- 
rience of  any  religiously  disposed  individual  its  true 
significance  as  a  source  of  insight.  Hereby,  as  I 
hope,  I  can  forthwith  show  that  even  the  present 
deliberately  limited  undertaking  of  these  lectures 
has  an  importance  which  you  ought  to  recognise, 
whatever  your  own  views  about  revelation  may  be. 

Let  me  suppose,  then,  that  an  objector,  speaking 
on  behalf  of  revelation  as  the  main  source  of  re- 
ligious insight,  states  his  case  briefly  thus:  "Man 
Ifearns  of  his  need  for  salvation  chiefly  through  learn- 
ing what  God's  will  is,  and  through  a  consequent 
discovery  that  his  own  natural  will  is  not  in  con- 
formity with  God's  will.  He  learns  about  the  way 
of  salvation  by  finding  out  by  what  process  God  is 
willing  to  save  him.  Both  sorts  of  knowledge  must 
be  principally  mediated  through  God's  revelation 
of  himself,  of  his  will,  and  of  his  plan  of  salvation. 
For,  left  to  himself,  man  cannot  find  out  these  things. 
Apart  from  revelation,  they  are  divine  secrets. 
Hence  the  principal  source  of  religious  insight  must 
be  revelation." 

Whoever  states  his  case  thus  brings  to  our  atten- 
tion at  this  point  what  I  may  venture  to  name: 
The  Religious  Paradox,  or,  to  use  other  terms.  The 
Paradox  of  Revelation.    I  call  attention  to  this 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  21 

paradox  in  no  spirit  of  mere  cavilling  or  quibbling. 
The  importance  of  the  matter  the  whole  course  of 
these  lectures  mil  show.  The  religious  paradox, 
as  we  shall  define  it,  is  one  of  the  deepest  facts  in  all 
religious  history  and  experience.  It  will  meet  us 
everywhere;  and  every  devout  soul  daily  faces  it. 
Moreover,  as  we  shall  see,  it  is  a  special  case  of  a 
paradox  regarding  our  human  insight  which  is  as 
universal  and  pervasive,  in  its  significance  for  us, 
as  is  our  human  intelligence  itself.  I  call  it  here 
the  religious  paradox.  I  shall  later  show  you  that 
it  might  be  called,  just  as  correctly,  the  paradox  of 
common-sense,  the  paradox  of  reason,  the  paradox 
of  knowledge,  yes,  the  paradox  of  being  thought- 
fully alive  in  any  sense  whatever. 

The  religious  paradox,  viewed  as  it  first  comes 
to  us,  may  be  stated  thus:  Let  a  man  say:  "I 
have  this  or  this  religious  insight  because  God  has^ 
revealed  to  me,  thus  and  thus,  his  will  about  me 
and  his  plans;  has  taught  me  my  need  of  salvation^ 
and  the  divine  way  of  salvation. 

"'Man  is  blind  because  of  sin; 
Revelation  makes  him  sure; 
Without  that  who  looks  within, 
Looks  in  vain;    for  all's  obscure.'" 

Let  a  man  say  this.  At  once,  addressing  this  be- 
liever in  a  revelation,  we  must  ask,  in  no  jesting 
spirit,  but  with  the  fullest  sense  of  the  tragic  gravity 
of  the  issue:    "By  what  marks  do  you  personally 


22  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

distinguish  a  divine  revelation  from  any  other  sort 
of  report?" 

Consider  for  an  instant  what  this  question  im- 
plies. A  depositor  at  a  bank,  in  signing  a  cheque, 
reveals  to  his  bank  his  will  that  such  and  such 
funds,  which  he  already  has  on  deposit  at  the  bank, 
shall  be  paid  to  the  order  of  a  certain  person.  How 
is  the  bank  able  to  recognise  this  revelation  of  the 
depositor's  will?  The  answer  is:  The  bank,  acting 
in  the  usual  order  of  business,  regards  this  revela- 
tion as  genuine  because  its  officers  already  know, 
with  sufficient  assurance,  the  depositor's  signature, 
and  can  therefore  recognise  it  at  sight,  subject,  of 
course,  to  a  certain  usually  negligible  risk  of  forgery. 
Apply  the  principle  here  involved  to  the  case  of 
the  one  who  acknowledges  the  genuineness  of  a 
divine  revelation.  In  asserting :  "  I  know  that  this 
revelation  is  from  God,"  the  believer  in  the  revela- 
tion asserts,  in  substance,  that  in  some  sense  and 
by  some  means  he  personally  knows,  as  it  were,  the 
divine  signature;  knows  by  what  marks  the  divine 
being  reveals  himself.  This  is  the  vast  presump- 
tion, if  you  will,  upon  which  the  believer  in  revela- 
tion depends  for  his  assurance.  He  knows  God's 
autograph.  Now,  how  shall  such  a  knowledge  of 
the  divine  autograph  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  the 
individual  believer?  Has  this  believer  first  wan- 
dered through  all  the  worlds  to  learn  how  the  vari- 
ous orders  of  beings  express  themselves,  what  marks 
of  their  wisdom  and  of  their  interest  in  humanity 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  23 

they  show,  and  who  amongst  them  are,  or  who  alone 
is,  actually  divine? 

I  repeat — the  stupendous  question  thus  suggested 
is  one  which  I  mention  not  in  any  spirit  of  cavil, 
but  solely  for  the  sake  of  directing  us  on  our  further 
way,  and  of  calling  attention  at  the  outset  to  a  fact 
upon  which  all  that  is  most  vital  in  the  religious 
consciousness  has  in  every  age  depended.  Every 
acceptance  of  a  revelation,  I  say,  depends  upon 
something  that,  in  the  individual's  mind,  must  be 
prior  to  this  acceptance.  And  this  something  is  an 
assurance  that  the  believer  already  knows  the  essen- 
tial marks  by  which  a  divine  revelation  is  to  be 
distinguished  from  any  other  sort  of  report.  In 
other  words,  a  revelation  can  be  viewed  by  you  as 
a  divine  revelation  only  in  case  you  hold,  for  what- 
ever reason,  or  for  no  reason,  that  you  already  are 
acquainted  with  the  signature  which  the  divine  will 
attaches  to  its  documents,  that  you  know  the  marks 
of  any  authentic  revelation  by  which  a  divine  will  ~ 
can  make  itself  known  to  you.  Unless,  then,  you 
are  to  make  one  supposed  revelation  depend  for  i^ 
warrant  upon  another  in  an  endless  series,  you  must'' 
presuppose  that  somewhere  there  is  found  a  revela-^ 
tion  that  proves  its  genuineness  by  appealing  tcr 
what  your  own  interior  light,  your  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  nature  of  -a.  divine  being,  enables  you 
to  know  as  the  basis  of  all  your  further  insight  into 
the  divine.  The  one  who  appeals  to  revelation  for 
guidance  cannot  then  escape  from  basing  his  appeal 


24  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

upon  something  which  involves  a  personal  and  in- 
dividual experience  of  what  the  need  and  the  way 
of  salvation  is  and  of  what  the  divine  nature  and 
expression  essentially  involves. 

Nor  is  this  remark  merely  the  unsympathetic 
comment  of  a  philosophical  critic  of  what  passes 
for  revelation.  The  truth  of  the  remark  is  acknowl- 
edged by  all  those  who  have  in  one  way  or  another 
insisted  that,  without  the  witness  of  the  spirit  in 
the  heart,  no  external  revelation  could  enlighten 
those  who  are  in  darkness;  that  miracles  by  them- 
selves are  inadequate,  because  signs  and  wonders 
cannot  teach  the  divine  will  to  those  whom  grace, 
working  inwardly,  does  not  prepare  for  enlighten- 
ment; and  that,  in  brief,  if  there  is  any  religious 
insight  whatever  accessible,  it  cannot  come  to  us 
without  our  individual  experience  as  its  personal 
foundation. 

Now,  the  religious  paradox  is  this:  What  one 
pretends  or  at  least  hopes  to  know,  when  there  is 
any  question  of  religious  insight,  is  something  which 
has  to  do  with  the  whole  nature  and  destiny  and 
duty  and  fate  of  man.  For  just  such  matters  are 
in  question  when  we  talk,  not  of  how  to  earn  our 
living  or  of  how  to  get  this  or  that  worldly  pros- 
perity, but  about  our  need  of  salvation  and  about 
how  to  be  saved.  So  deep  and  so  weighty  are  these 
matters,  that  to  pretend  to  know  about  them  seems 
to  involve  knowing  about  the  whole  nature  of 
things.     And  when  we  conceive  of  the  whole  nature 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  25 

of  things  as  somehow  interested  in  us  and  in  our  sal- 
vation, as  the  religiously  minded  very  generally  do, 
we  call  this  nature  of  things  divine,  in  a  very  fa- 
miliar sense  of  that  word.     Hence  the  higher  relig- 
ions generally  undertake  to  know,  as  they  say,  the 
divine.     And  by  the  divine  they  mean  some  real 
power  or  principle  or  being  that  saves  us  or  that 
may  save  us.     But  how  is  this  divine  to  be  known? 
By  revelation?     But  knowledge  through  revelation 
can  enlighten  only  the  one  in  whose  personal  expe- 
rience there  is  somewhere  an  adequate  interior  light, 
which  shines  in  the  darkness,  and  which  permits 
him  to  test  all  revelations  by  a  prior  acquaintance 
with  the  nature  and  marks  and,  so  to  speak,  signa- 
ture of  the  divine  will.     Hereupon  arises  the  ques- 
tion: How  should  I,  weak  of  wit  as  I  am,  ignorant, 
fallible,  a  creature  of  a  day,  come  to  possess  that 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  plan  of  all  things, 
and  with  the  meaning  of  life,  and  with  the  divine, 
which  I  must  obtain  in  case  I  am  to  pass  upon  the 
marks  whereby  any  revelation  that  can  save  me  is 
to  be  tested?    The  paradox  is  that  a  being  who  is 
so  ignorant  of  his  duty  and  of  his  destiny  as  to  need 
guidance  at  every  point,  so  weak  as  to  need  saving, 
should  still  hope,  in  his  fallible  experience,  to  getj 
into  touch  with  anything  divine.     The  question  is, 
how  is  this  possible?    What  light  can  my  individual 
experience  throw  upon  vast  problems  such  as  this? 


26  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 


I  have  stated  what  I  call  the  religious  paradox. 
The  whole  of  what  I  have  hereafter  to  tell  you  is 
needed  in  order  to  throw  such  light  as  I  can  here 
attempt  to  throw  upon  the  solution  of  the  paradox. 
You  will  not  expect,  then,  an  immediate  answer  to 
the  question  thus  brought  before  you.  Yet  you  see 
our  present  situation:  Unless  there  is  something  in 
our  individual  experience  which  at  least  begins  to 
bring  us  into  a  genuine  touch,  both  with  the  fact 
that  we  need  salvation  and  with  the  marks  whereby 
we  may  recognise  the  way  of  salvation,  and  the 
essentially  divine  process,  if  such  there  be,  which 
alone  can  save — unless,  I  say,  there  is  within  each 
of  us  something  of  this  interior  light  by  which  sav- 
ing di\dne  truth  is  to  be  discerned,  religious  insight 
is  impossible,  and  then  no  merely  external  revela- 
tion can  help  us.  Let  us  then,  without  further 
delay,  turn  directly  to  the  inner  light,  if  such  light 
there  be,  and  ask  what,  apart  from  tradition,  apart 
from  external  revelation,  apart  from  explicit  theories 
or  reports  concerning  the  universe,  apart  from  all 
other  sources,  our  own  individual  experience  can  tell 
us  as  to  the  need  and  the  way  of  salvation,  and  as 
to  the  marks  by  which  we  may  recognise  whatever 
real  influences,  or  divine  beings,  can  intervene  to 
help  us  in  our  need.  We  shall  not  upon  this  occa- 
sion answer  the  question;  but  we  may  do  some- 
thing to  clarify  the  issue. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  27 

My  dear  friend,  the  late  William  James,  in  his 
book  called  "The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, " 
defined,  for  his  own  purposes,  religious  experience  as 
the  experience  of  individuals  who  regard  themselves 
as  "alone  with  the  divine."  In  portraying  what  he 
meant  by  "the  divine,"  James  emphasised,  although 
in  language  different  from  what  I  am  using,  the 
very  features  about  the  objects  of  religious  experi- 
ence which  I  have  just  been  trying  to  characterise 
in  my  own  way.  Those  who  have  religious  experi- 
ence, according  to  James,  get  into  touch  with  some- 
thing which,  as  he  says,  gives  "a  new  dimension"  to 
their  life.  As  a  result  of  their  better  and  more 
exalted  religious  experience,  they  win  a  sense  of 
unity  with  "higher  powers,"  whose  presence  seems 
to  them  to  secure  a  needed  but  otherwise  unattain- 
able spiritual  unity,  peace,  power  in  their  lives. 
This  "divine"  thus  accomplishes  inwardly  what  the 
individual  "alone  with  the  divine"  feels  to  be  sav- 
ing, to  be  needed,  to  be  his  pearl  of  great  price. 
This  is  James's  way  of  defining  the  objects  of  re- 
ligious experience. 

Now  James's  whole  view  of  religious  experience 
differs  in  many  ways  from  mine.  But  just  at  the 
present  point  in  our  inquiry,  where  it  is  a  question 
of  what  I  should  call  the  most  elementary  and  in- 
timate, but  also  the  crudest  and  most  capricious 
source  of  religious  insight,  namely,  the  experience  of 
the  individual  "alone  with  the  divine,"  I  feel  my 
own  account  to  be  most  dependent  upon  that  of 


28  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

James  and  my  own  position  to  be  most  nearly  in 
agreement  with  his. 

Let  me  refer  you,  then,  at  this  stage,  to  James's 
great  collection  and  analysis  of  the  facts  of  indi- 
vidual religious  experience.  Let  me  presuppose 
some  personal  acquaintance,  on  your  part,  with 
individual  experiences  of  the  various  types  that 
James  so  wonderfully  portrays.  And  then,  in  my 
own  way,  and  as  independently  of  James's  special 
theories  as  possible,  let  me  tell  you  what,  to  my 
mind,  is  the  essential  substance  of  these  elementary 
religious  experiences  which  may  come  to  the  indi- 
vidual when  he  is  alone  with  the  problem  of  his 
own  salvation  and  alone  with  his  efforts  to  know 
the  divine  that  can  save.  Let  me  try  to  show  you 
that  the  individual,  thus  isolated,  is  indeed  in  touch 
with  a  genuine  source  of  insight.  Let  me  try  to 
indicate  both  the  value  and  the  limitations  of  that 
source  in  such  wise  as  to  prepare  us  to  view  this 
first  source  in  its  needed  relation  to  the  sources 
hereafter  to  be  studied. 

The  religious  experience  of  the  individual  may 
concern  three  objects:  First,  his  Ideal,  that  is,  the 
standard  in  terms  of  which  he  estimates  the  sense 
and  the  value  of  his  own  personal  life;  secondly, 
his  Need  of  salvation,  that  is,  the  degree  to  which 
he  falls  short  of  attaining  his  ideal  and  is  sundered 
from  it  by  evil  fortune,  or  by  his  own  paralysis  of 
will,  or  by  his  inward  baseness;  thirdly,  the  pres- 
ence or  the  coming  or  the  longing  for,  or  the  com- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  29 


i 


munion  with  something  which  he  comes  to  view 
as  the  power  that  may  save  him  from  his  need,  or 
as  the  Hght  that  may  dispel  his  darkness,  or  as  the 
truth  that  shows  him  the  way  out,  or  as  the  great 
companion  who  helps  him — in  a  word,  as  his  Deliv- 
erer. The  Ideal,  the  Need,  the  Deliverer — these 
are  the  three  objects  which  the  individual  experi- 
ence, as  a  source  of  religious  insight,  has  always 
undertaken  to  reveal.  James's  collection  of  the 
facts  of  religious  experience  richly  illustrates  what  I 
here  have  in  mind.  To  that  collection,  and  to  your 
own  individual  experience,  I  appeal  as  my  warrant 
for  thus  characterising  our  first  source  of  insight. 
Can  we  say  that  this  source  gives  us  genuine  in- 
sight and  is  trustworthy?  Does  it  teach  us  about 
anything  that  is  real;  and  if  this  be  so,  how  far 
does  this  source  of  insight  go?  What  is  the  extent, 
what  are  the  limitations  of  the  truth  that  one  can 
hope  in  this  way  to  gain? 

As  to  the  first  two  objects  of  the  individual  religi- 
ous experience,  namely,  the  individual's  own  per- 
sonal ideal  and  his  sense  of  his  need,  you  will 
readily  agree  that  one's  private  experience  is,  indeed, 
a  source  of  genuine  insight.  You  will,  however,  find 
it  hard  at  first  to  define  just  how  far  that  insight 
extends.  For  the  world  of  a  man's  private  ideals 
and  estimates  is  a  worl4  of  precious  caprices,  be- 
cause not  only  does  one  man's  private  feelings  or 
intuitions  about  ideals  and  values  differ  from  another 
man's,  but  every  man's  own  ideals,  and  his  sense  of 


30  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

need,  tend  to  alter  endlessly  with  the  play  of  his 
passions,  with  the  waxing  and  waning  of  all  his 
natural  powers,  with  his  health,  with  his  age.  One 
form  of  the  religious  paradox  may,  in  fact,  be  stated 
thus:  Without  intense  and  intimate  personal  feel- 
ing, you  never  learn  any  valuable  truths  whatever 
about  life,  about  its  ideals,  or  about  its  problems; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  what  you  know  only  through 
your  feelings  is,  like  the  foam  of  the  sea,  unstable — 
like  the  passing  hour,  doomed  to  pass  away. 

James,  as  a  psychologist,  well  knew  this  truth 
about  the  value  and  the  limitations  of  private  expe- 
rience; yet  it  was  characteristic  of  his  enterprising 
soul  that  he  was  always  looking,  in  his  "pluralistic 
universe,"  for  the  strange,  new  religious  experiences 
of  other  and  still  other  individuals,  without  being 
able  thereby  even  to  define  what  all  these  ardent 
souls  were  seeking,  namely,  some  genuine  home 
land  of  the  spirit,  some  place  or  experience  or  in- 
sight in  which  is  to  be  revealed  that  for  the  sake  of 
which  all  the  feelings,  the  caprices,  the  longings,  the 
efforts  of  individuals  are  justified — and  fulfilled. 

Now  the  best  way  of  defining  what  it  is  which  our 
inner  experience  of  our  ideal  and  of  our  need  shows 
us  is,  I  think,  this:  We  are  indeed,  and  so  far 
just  as  the  Buddhists  said,  naturally  the  creatures 
of  transient  feelings,  of  passing  caprices,  of  various 
and  wilful  longings.  But,  just  because  of  this  fact, 
we  can  get  an  insight,  as  intimate  as  it  is  fragmen- 
tary, into  one  absolutely  valuable  ideal.    I  do  not 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  31 

think  that  the  Buddhists  best  expressed  our  ideal 
by  the  words  "the  extinction  of  desire."  It  is 
rather  the  ideal  of  triumph  over  our  unreason.  It 
is  the  ideal  that  the  reign  of  caprice  ought  to  be 
ended,  that  the  wounds  of  the  spirit  ought  to  be 
healed.  In  the  midst  of  all  our  caprices,  yes, 
because  of  our  caprices,  we  learn  the  value  of  one 
great  spiritual  ideal,  the  ideal  of  spiritual  unity  and' 
self-possession.  And  both  our  ideal  and  our  need 
come  to  consciousness  at  once.  We  need  to  bring 
our  caprices  into  some  sort  of  harmony;  to  bind  up 
the  wounds  of  what  James  calls  the  divided  "self"; 
to  change  the  wanderings  of  chance  passion  into 
something  that  shall  bring  the  home  land  of  the 
spirit,  the  united  goal  of  life  into  sight.  And  so 
much  all  the  great  cynics,  and  the  nobler  rebels, 
and  the  prophets  and  the  saints  and  the  martyrs 
and  the  sages  have  in  common  taught  us.  So 
much  Socrates  and  Plato  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  and 
our  modern  teachers  of  the  wisdom  of  life,  and,  in 
his  noblest  words,  the  Buddha  also,  and  Jesus, 
have  agreed  in  proclaiming  as  the  ideal  and  the 
need  revealed  to  us  by  all  that  is  deepest  about  our 
individual  experience:  We  need  to  give  life  sense, 
to  know  and  to  control  our  own  selves,  to  end  the 
natural  chaos,  to  bring  order  and  light  into  our 
deeds,  to  make  the  warfare  of  natural  passion  sub- 
ordinate to  the  peace  and  the  power  of  the  spirit. 
This  is  our  need.  To  live  thus  is  our  ideal.  And 
because  this  need  is  pressing  and  this  ideal  is  far  oflF 
from  the  natural  man,  we  need  salvation. 


\ 


32  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

So  much,  I  say,  our  individual  experience  can 
bring  before  us.  This  ideal  and  this  need  can 
become  the  objects  of  an  insight  that  is  as  intimate 
as  it  is,  by  itself,  unsatisfying.  This  need,  I  think, 
all  the  devout  share,  however  unlearned  their  speech, 
however  simple  their  minds,  however  various  their 
creeds.  Unity  of  Spirit,  conformity  to  an  universal 
Will,  peace  with  power — this  is  our  need. 

It  remains  for  the  individual  experience  to  show 
to  us,  if  it  can,  the  presence  of  our  Deliverer,  the 
coming  of  that  which  we  shall  recognise  as  divine, 
just  because  it  truly  and  authoritatively  reveals  to 
the  Self  the  fulfilment  that  we  need,  by  bringing 
us  into  touch  with  the  real  nature  of  things.  We 
need  to  find  the  presence  that  can  give  this  unity 

.and  self-possession  to  the  soul.  This  presence  is 
what  all  the  higher  religions  seek  to  reveal.  But  if 
we  arfe  to  leatn  of  such  an  object  of  insight  we 
must,  indeed,  come  into  touch  with  a  Power  or  a 

/Spirit  that  is  in  some  true  sense  not-Ourselves. 
And  so  we  must  be  able  somehow  to  transcend  the 
boundaries  of  any  merely  individual  experience. 
Our  individual  experience  must  become  some  sort 
of  intercourse  with  Another.  And  this  Other  must 
be  in  some  sense  the  Master  of  Life,  the  Might  that 
overcometh  the  world,  the  revealer  of  final  truth. 
Without  ceasing  to  be  personal  and  intimate,  out 
experience  must  in  some  way  come  into  direct  touch 
with  the  .very  nature  of  reality. 

Is  such  a  direct  touch  with  the  divine  possible? 
The  mystics  of  all  ages  have  maintained  that  it  is 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  33 

possible.  Are  they  right?  To  answer  this  question 
adequately  would  be  to  solve  the  religious  paradox. 
It  would  be  to  show  whether  and  how  the  indi- 
vidual, even  in  his  isolation,  "alone  with  the  divine," 
can  come  to  be  nevertheless  in  unity  with  all  other 
spirits,  in  touch  with  all  that  hes  beneath  and  above 
himself,  and  with  all  that  constitutes  the  essence  of 
reality.  Perhaps  this  is  indeed  possible.  Unless  it 
is  possible,  revelation,  as  we  have  seen,  loses  pre- 
cisely its  most  intimate  significance,  as  an  appeal  of 
the  divine  spirit  directly  to  the  interior  light.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  all  the  mystics  confess  that,  if 
this  is  possible,  and  if  it  happens  in  their  own  cases, 
they  alone,  viewing  their  experience  merely  as  an 
individual  experience,  know  not  how  it  happens,  but 
must  accept  their  revelation  as  an  insight  without 
knowing  in  what  precise  sense  it  is  insight. 

It  follows  that  individual  experience  remains  a 
source  of  religious  insight  as  indispensable  and  as 
fundamental  as  it  is,  by  itself,  inadequate  and  in 
need  of  supplement.  Unless  you  have  inwardly  felt 
the  need  of  salvation,  and  have  learned  to  hunger - 
and  thirst  after  spiritual  unity  and  self-possession, 
all  the  rest  of  religious  insight  is  to  you  a  sealed 
book.  And  unless,  in  moments  of  peace,  of  illumi- 
n_^tion,  of  hope,  of  devotion,  of  inward  vision,  you 
have  seemed  to  feel  the  presence  of  your  Deliverer, 
unless  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  you  as  if  the  way 
to  the  home  land  of  the  spirit  were  opened  to  your 
sight  by  a  revelation  as  from  the  divine,  unless  this 


34  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

privilege  has  been  yours,  the  way  to  a  higher  growth 
in  insight  will  be  slow  and  uncertain  to  you.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  no  one  who  remains  content  with 
his  merely  individual  experience  of  the  presence  of 
the  divine  and  of  his  deliverer,  has  won  the  whole  of 
any  true  insight.  For,  as  a  fact,  we  are  all  members 
one  of  another;  and  I  can  have  no  insight  into  the 
way  of  my  salvation  unless  I  thereby  learn  of  the 
way  of  salvation  for  all  my  brethren.  And  there  is 
no  unity  of  the  spirit  unless  all  men  are  privileged 
to  enter  it  whenever  they  see  it  and  know  it  and 
love  it. 

Individual  Experience,  therefore,  must  abide  with 
us  to  the  very  end  of  our  quest,  as  one  principal  and 
fundamental  source  of  insight.  But  it  is  one  aspect 
only  of  Religious  Experience.  We  shall  learn  to 
understand  and  to  estimate  it  properly  only  when 
we  have  found  its  deeper  relations  with  our  Social 
Experience.  In  passing  to  our  social  experience, 
however,  we  shall  not  leave  our  individual  experi- 
ence behind.  On  the  contrary,  through  thus  pass- 
ing to  our  social  experience  as  a  source  of  religious 
insight,  we  shall  for  the  first  time  begin  to  see  what 
our  individual  experience  means. 


II 

INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  AND  SOCIAL 
EXPERIENCE 


n 

INDIVIDUAL  EXPERIENCE  AND  SOCIAL 
EXPERIENCE 

The  results  of  our  first  lecture  appear  to  have 
brought  the  religious  problems,  so  far  as  we  shall 
attempt  to  consider  them,  into  a  position  which  in 
one  respect  simplifies,  in  another  respect  greatly 
complicates  our  undertaking. 


In  one  way,  I  say,  our  undertaking  is  simplified. 
For,  as  we  have  defined  religion,  the  main  concern 
of  any  religion  that  we  are  to  recognise  is  with  the 
salvation  of  man,  and  with  whatever  objects  or 
truths  it  is  important  to  know  if  we  are  to  find 
the  way  of  salvation.  Now  the  experiences  which 
teach  us  that  we  need  what  I  have  ventured  to  call 
by  the  traditional  name  salvation,  are,  from  my 
point  of  view,  experiences  common  to  a  very  large 
portion  of  mankind.  They  are  great  and,  in  cer- 
tain respects  at  least,  simple  experiences.  You  can 
have  them  and  estimate  them  without  being  com- 
mitted to  any  one  form  of  religious  faith,  without 
accepting   any    special    creed    about    supernatural 

37 


38  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

things,  and  even  without  hoping  to  find  out  any  way 
of  salvation  whatever.  The  essential  conditions  for 
discovering  that  man  needs  salvation  are  these: 
You  must  find  that  human  life  has  some  highest 
end;  and  you  must  also  find  that  man,  as  he  natu- 
rally is,  is  in  great  danger  of  failing  to  attain  this 
supreme  goal.  If  you  discover  these  two  facts 
(and  I  personally  hold  them  to  be  facts  whose 
reality  you  can  experience),  then  the  quest  for  the 
salvation  of  man  interests  you,  and  is  defined  for 
you  in  genuinely  empirical  terms.  Given  the  prob- 
lem, you  may  or  you  may  not  see  how  to  solve  it. 
You  may  or  you  may  not  appeal  to  what  you  sup- 
pose to  be  a  revelation  to  guide  you  on  the  way. 
But  in  any  case,  granted  these  conditions,  granted 
that  your  experience  has  shown  you  your  need  of 
salvation — then  the  problem  of  religion  is  upon 
your  hands.  Soluble  or  insoluble,  the  topic  of  a 
revelation  from  above,  or  of  a  scientific  inquiry,  or 
of  a  philosophy,  or  of  a  haphazard  series  of  efforts 
to  better  your  condition,  this  problem,  if  it  once 
comes  to  hold  your  attention,  will  make  of  you  a 
religious  inquirer.  And  so  long  as  this  is  the  case, 
no  degree  of  cynicism  or  of  despair  regarding  the 
finding  of  the  way  to  salvation,  will  deprive  you  of 
genuinely  religious  interest.  The  issue  will  be  one 
regarding  facts  of  live  experience.  The  concerns 
that  for  you  will  seem  to  be  at  stake  will  be  per- 
fectly human,  and  will  be  in  close  touch  with  every 
interest  of  daily  life. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  39 

To  conceive  the  business  of  religion  in  this  way 
simplifies  our  undertaking,  in  so  far  as  it  connects 
religion  not  merely  with  doubtful  dogmas  and  rec- 
ondite speculations,  but  rather  with  personal  and 
practical  interests  and  with  the  spirit  of  all  serious 
endeavour. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  this  way  of  defining  religion 
does,  indeed,  also  complicate  certain  aspects  of  our 
present  task.  For  if,  from  our  point  of  view,  re- 
ligion thus  becomes,  in  one  way  or  another,  the 
concern  of  everybody  who  has  once  seen  that  life 
has  a  highest  goal,  and  that  we  are  all  naturally  in 
great  danger  of  missing  this  goal — still  any  effort 
to  study  the  nature  of  religious  insight  seems  to  re- 
quire us  to  be  somehow  just  to  all  the  endless  varie- 
ties of  human  opinion  regarding  what  the  highest 
goal  of  human  life  is,  and  regarding  the  way  to 
attain  that  goal  after  we  have  once  defined  it.  In 
some  sense,  in  our  further  inquiry,  nothing  human 
can  be  alien  to  us,  in  case  it  involves  any  deep  expe- 
rience of  man's  purpose  in  living,  or  of  man's  peril 
as  a  seeker  after  the  attainment  of  his  purpose;  or 
any  assurance  regarding  the  presence  or  the  power 
which,  entering  into  some  sort  of  union  with  any 
man's  own  spiritual  life,  seems  to  that  man  an  apt 
Deliverer  from  his  evil  plight,  a  genuinely  saving 
principle  in  his  life. 

How  great  the  resulting  complications  that 
threaten  our  investigation  seem  to  be  the  conclu- 
sion of  our  former  lecture  showed  us.    Countless 


40  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

souls,  trusting  to  their  individual  experience,  have 
leb)i^ned,  is  we  at  the  last  time  indicated,  to  define 
their  ideal,  and  their  need,  and,  upon  occasion,  to 
discover  the  power  that  they  took  to  be  their  saving 
principle — their  deliverer.  Who  amongst  all  these 
were  right,  either  in  their  judgment  as  to  their 
need  or  in  their  consciousness  that  they  had  found 
the  way  that  leads  to  peace,  to  triumph,  to  union 
with  the  goal  of  human  life?  Were  all  of  them 
more  or  less  right?  Were  any  of  them  wholly 
deluded?  Are  there  as  many  supreme  aims  of  life 
as  there  are  individuals?  Are  there  as  many  ways 
of  salvation  as  there  are  religions  that  men  follow? 
And  by  what  means  shall  we  decide  such  questions? 
Grave  and  infinitely  complicated  seem  the  issues 
which  these  queries  arouse. 

Upon  one  side,  then,  our  problem  is  pathetically 
simple,  human,  practical,  even  commonplace.  Daily 
experience,  in  serious-minded  people,  illustrates  it. 
The  plainest  facts  of  our  life  exemphfy  it.  It  con- 
cerns nothing  more  recondite  than  that  tragedy  of 
natural  human  failure  which  you  may  constantly 
witness  all  about  you,  if  not  within  you.  Upon 
the  other  side,  no  questions  more  bring  you  into 
contact  with  the  chaotic  variety  of  human  opinion, 
and  with  the  complexities  of  the  whole  universe, 
than  do  ■^he  religious  questions,  when  thus  defined 
in  terms  of  men's  deepest  needs  and  of  men's 
hopes  and  faiths  regarding  the  possible  escape  from 
their  most  pressing  peril  of  failure. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  41 

Our  first  lecture  gave  us  a  glimpse  of  this  sim- 
plicity of  the  main  definition  of  our  problem  and 
of  this  complication  with  regard  to  the  conflicting 
proposals  that  are  made  toward  its  special  formu- 
lation and  toward  its  solution.  We  have  now  to 
study  further  the  sources  of  insight  upon  which 
every  solution  of  our  problem  must  depend. 

II 

Our  present  lecture  -^ill  be  devoted  to  three  tasks. 
First,  we  shall  try  to  show  that  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  mankind,  when  it  is  concerned  with 
the  need  and  w4th  the  way  of  salvation,  must  needs 
appear  in  many  various  and  apparently  conflicting 
forms,  but  that,  nevertheless,  these  conflicts  need 
not  discourage  us.  For,  -as  we  shall  attempt  still 
further  to  explain,  the  underlying  motives  of  the 
higher  religions  are,  after  all,  much  more  in  agree- 
ment than  the  diversities  of  creeds  and  the  appa- 
rent chaos  of  religious  experiences  would  lead  us 
to  imagine.  In  order  to  make  this  deeper  unity  of 
the  higher  religious  life  of  mankind  plain,  we  shall 
try  to  show,  more  fully  than  we  did  in  the  last 
lecture,  how  the  consciousness  of  the  ideal  of  life, 
and  of  the  need  of  salvation,  naturally  arises  in  the 
experience  of  the  individual  man.  The  religious 
paradox,  as,  in  our  former  lectur^,  we  defined  that 
paradox,  depends  upon  the  fact  that  the  principal 
religious  motives  are  indeed  perfectly  natural  and 


42  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

human  motives,  which  need  no  mysterious  movings 
from  another  world  to  explain  their  presence  in  our 
lives;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  these  very  motives, 
when  once  they  appear,  force  us  to  seek  for  relief 
from  spiritual  sources  that  cannot  satisfy  unless 
they  are  far  above  our  natural  human  level  of  life — 
that  is,  unless  they  are  in  some  definable  sense 
superhuman.  But  about  superhuman  matters  it  is 
not  surprising  that  ignorant  mortals  should  widely 
differ,  despite  the  deeper  unity  that  underlies  all 
our  nobler  religious  needs. 

Thus  the  unity  of  the  religious  concerns  of  man- 
kind is  perfectly  compatible  with  the  fact  that  men 
differ  so  widely  in  faith.  The  mysteries  of  religion 
belong  to  our  natural  failure  to  conceive  readily 
and  to  grasp  adequately  the  religious  objects.  But 
our  religious  need  is  not  a  mystery;  and  our  religi- 
ous interests  are  as  natural  as  is  our  ignorance. 
The  higher  forms  of  the  religious  consciousness  are 
due  to  perfectly  human  motives  but  lead  to  a  stub- 
bom  quest  for  the  superhuman.  To  understand 
whence  the  higher  religions  get  their  moving  prin- 
ciple, you  have  only  to  survey  our  natural  life  as  it 
is,  in  all  its  pathetic  and  needy  fallibility.  But  if 
the  higher  religions  are  to  find  what  they  seek,  they 
call  for  sources  of  insight  which  you  cannot  define, 
unless  we  are  able  to  know  a  reality  that  transcends 
human  nature  as  it  is — unless  we  can  come  into 
genuine  intercourse  with  a  spiritual  realm  that  is 
above  man.    This  naturalness  of  the  religious  mo- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  43 

tives,  this  supernatural  and  naturally  baffling  char- 
acter of  the  religious  objects,  I  am,  then,  first  to 
illustrate  still  further  than  I  at  the  last  time  was 
able  to  do. 

I  shall  thus  be  led,  in  the  second  place,  to  the 
mention  of  that  source  of  religious  insight  to  which, 
at  the  close  of  the  former  lecture,  I  directed  your 
attention,  namely,  to  our  social  experience.  So- 
ciety, in  a  certain  sense,  both  includes  and  tran- 
scends the  individual  man.  Perhaps,  then,  some- 
thing can  be  done  toward  solving  the  problem  of 
the  religious  paradox,  and  toward  harmonising  the 
varieties  of  religious  opinion,  by  considering  the 
religious  meaning  of  our  social  consciousness.  The 
religious  paradox  is  that  the  needy  and  ignqrant 
natural  man  must  somehow  obtain  the  spiritual 
power  to  get  into  a  genuine  touch  with  a  real  life 
that  is  above  his  own  level.  If  he  is  to  be  saved, 
something  that  is  divine  must  come  to  be  born  in 
the  humble  manger  of  his  poor  natural  Ufe.  How 
is  this  apparition  of  the  divine  in  the  human,  of 
the  supernatural  in  the  natural,  conceivable?  -  It  is 
that  question  which  most  of  all  divides  men  into 
various  religious  sects.  Perhaps  a  study  of  our  so- 
cial experience,  which,  indeed,  often  tends  to  mould 
our  naturally  narrow  selfishness  into  nobler  spiritual 
forms,  may  throw  light  upon  this  problem.  And 
so  I  shall,  in  this  second  part  of  the  present  dis- 
course, state  the  case  for  our  social  experience  as  a 
source  of  religious  insight. 


44  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

We  shall,  however,  no  sooner  state  this  case  than 
we  shall  begin  to  see  how  inadequate  our  ordinary- 
social  experience  is  to  give  us  full  religious  insight. 
Therefore,  in  the  third  place,  I  shall  try  to  estimate 
more  critically  both  the  merits  and  the  imperfec- 
tions of  this  second  source  of  religious  light,  and 
thus  I  shall  be  led,  as  I  close,  to  the  mention  of  a 
third  source,  from  which,  as  I  hold,  we  can  learn 
what  neither  our  unaided  private  experience  nor  our 
ordinary  social  experience  ever  adequately  shows. 

,      HI 

Let  me  proceed  at  once  to  the  first  of  these  three 
undertakings.  I  am  further  to  illustrate,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  unity  and  the  naturalness  of  the  religious 
motives;  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  to  emphasise  the 
mysterious  seeming  of  the  religious  objects.  And  I 
am  thus  to  show  the  reason  why  the  faiths  of  men 
are  so  diverse  but  their  religious  needs  so  nearly- 
common. 

At  the  last  time  I  tried  to  define  for  you,  in  my 
own  terms,  what  the  supreme  purpose  of  human 
life  is,  or,  in  other  words,  what  that  highest  good  is 
which  we  are  all  in  such  peril  of  missing  that  we 
need  salvation  from  this  peril.  My  definition  was 
this:  We  are  naturally  creatures  of  wavering  and 
conflicting  motives,  passions,  desires.  The  supreme 
aim  of  life  is  to  triumph  over  this  natural  chaos,  to 
set  some  one  plan  of  life  above  all  the  others,  to  give 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  45 

unity  to  our  desires,  to  organise  our  activities,  to 
win,  not,  indeed,  the  passionless  peace  of  Nirvana, 
but  the  strength  of  spirit  which  is  above  the  narrow- 
ness of  each  one  of  our  separate  passions.  We  need 
to  conceive  of  such  a  triumphant  and  unified  life, 
and  successfully  to  live  it.  That.is  our  goal:  Self- 
possession,  unity,  peace,  and  spiritual  power  through 
and  yet  beyond  all  the  turmoil  of  life — the  victory 
that  overcometh  in  the  world. 

Now  this  definition  of  the  ideal  life  will  have 
seemed  to  some  of  you  too  much  a  merely  philo- 
sophical formula.  You  will  say  that  this  is  not 
what  plain  men  have  in  mind  when  they  ask  God's 
help,  or  lament  their  sins,  or  look  to  religion  for 
consolation. 

I  grant  you  that,  since  I  am  here  concerned  with 
philosophy  and  not  with  preaching,  I,  of  course, 
prefer,  for  my  present  purpose,  a  formulation  of 
the  ideal  of  life  in  reflective,  in  thoughtful  terms. 
But  I  cannot  admit  that  plain  men,  in  their  religi- 
ous moods,  are  not  concerned  with  the  ideal  of  fife 
which  I  thus  reflectively  formulate.  I  am  trying  to 
formulate  the  ideal  of  life  that  seems  to  me  to  un- 
derlie all  the  higher  religions.  It  is  one  thing, 
however,  to  feel  an  interest  and  another  thing  to 
become  conscious  of  the  meaning  of  the  interest. 
No  matter  how  inarticulate  may  be  a  man's  sense 
of  his  need,  that  sense,  if  deep  and  genuine,  may 
imply  a  view  of  life  which  a  whole  system  of  ethics 
and  of  metaphysics  may  be  needed  to  expound. 


46  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Philosophy  ought  to  be  considerate,  and  to  use 
more  or  less  technical  speech,  but  it  need  not  be  on 
that  account  inhuman.  Its  concern  is  with  what 
common-sense  means  but  does  not  express  in  clearly 
conscious  terms.  It  does  not  want  to  substitute 
its  formulas  for  life.  It  does  desire  to  add  its 
thoughtfulness  to  the  intensity  of  life's  great  con- 
cerns and  to  enlighten  us  regarding  what  aims  life 
has  always  really  intended  to  pursue. 

My  own  effort  to  formulate  the  supreme  end  of 
life  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  foreign  to  common- 
sense.  I  think  that  this  way  of  stating  the  purpose 
of  life  may  help  us  to  see  through  many  of  the 
apparently  hopeless  diversities  of  human  opinion 
regarding  what  the  highest  good  is. 

It  is  customary  to  describe  that  longing  for  sal- 
vation which  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  these 
lectures,  the  foundation  of  religion,  by  Baying  that 
the  man  who  begins  to  get  religious  interest  dis- 
covers that  when  left  to  himself  he  is  out  of  har- 
mony with  what  James  calls  "the  higher  powers," 
that  is,  with  what  a  Christian  calls  God.  In  other 
words,  as  a  customary  formula  states  the  case,  the 
religiously  disposed  man  begins  by  learning  that 
the  chief  end  of  his  existence  is  to  come  into  har- 
mony with  God's  will.  ^And  this  discovery,  as  such 
a  view  supposes,  teaches  him,  for  the  first  time, 
what  his  ideal  of  life  ought  to  be.  And  therefore, 
as  many  say,  something  that  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
mysterious  revelation  from  without  is  needed  to 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  47 

initiate  the  religious  process  and  to  show  us  our 
goal.  On  the  other  hand,  writers  like  James,  who 
insist  upon  interpreting  religion,  so  far  as  that 
is  possible,  in  terms  of  personal  experience  rather 
than  in  terms  of  external  revelation,  have  never- 
theless been  led  to  agree  with  many  of  the  parti- 
sans of  revelation  in  regarding  this  sense  of  our 
disharmony  with  the  "higher  powers"  as  some- 
thing that  must  have  an  essentially  superhuman 
source.  For  James,  our  sense  of  religious  need  is 
an  experience  which  mysteriously  wells  up  from  the 
subliminal  self,  from  the  soundless  depths  of  our 
own  subconsciousness.  James,  therefore,  conceive! 
it  probable  that,  through  the  subliminal  or  subcon- 
scious self,  we  are  actually  aroused  to  religious  inter- 
est by  spiritual  beings  whose  level  is  higher  than  our 
own,  and  whose  will,  expressed  to  us  through  the 
vague  but  often  intense  sense  of  need  which  the 
religiously  minded  feel,  does  set  for  us  an  ideal 
task  which  is  of  greater  worth  than  our  natural 
desires,  and  which,  when  we  can  get  into  harmony 
with  these  powers  through  the  aid  of  their  sub- 
liminal influences,  does  give  a  new  sense  to  life. 

Now  in  contrast  with  such  views  regarding  the 
origin  of  that  deeper  sense  of  need  which  is  indeed 
the  beginning  of  religion,  I  have  to  insist  that  the 
basis  of  the  religious  interest  is  something  much 
less  mysterious  than  James's  supposed  workings  of 
the  "higher  powers"  through  our  subliminal  selves, 
and  is  also  something  much  more  universally  human 


48  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

than  is  the  opportunity  to  come  under  the  influence 
of  any  one  revelation.  Men  who  never  heard  of 
Christianity,  and  men  who  have  never  felt  con- 
scious of  any  external  revelation  from  above,  as 
well  as  men  who  have  had  no  such  sudden  uprushes 
from  their  own  subconscious  natures  as  James's 
"religious  geniuses"  have  reported,  are  able  to  win 
a  genuine  religious  interest,  to  be  aware  of  an  intense 
need  for  salvation,  and  to  set  before  themselves,  in 
however  inarticulate  a  fashion,  the  very  ideal  of  life 
which  I  have  been  trying  in  my  own  way  to  formu- 
late. The  need  and  the  ideal  can  come  into  sight 
in  a  manner  that  indeed  does  not  in  the  least  either 
exclude  or  require  a~  belief  in  one  or  in  another 
reported  revelation,  but  that  links  both  the  need 
and  the  ideal  to  our  ordinary  personal  experience 
by  ties  which  are  not  at  all  mysterious.  Let  me 
show  you,  then,  better  than  my  time  permitted  in 
the  former  lecture,  how  an  individual  may  natu- 
rally experience  what  I  have  called  his  need  of  sal- 
^\  vation. 

Nothing  is  more  obvious  about  the  natural  course 
of  our  lives  than  is  the  narrowness  of  view  to  which 
we  are  usually  subject.  We  are  not  only  the  victims 
''of  conflicting  motives,  but  we  are  often  too  narrow 
to  know  that  this  is  true.  For  we  see  our  various 
life  interests,  so  to  speak,  one  at  a  time.  We  forget 
one  while  we  are  living  out  another.  And  so  we  are 
prone  to  live  many  lives,  seldom  noting  how  ill 
harmonised  they  are.    Home  life,  for  instance,  may 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  49 

be  one  thing;  business  life  in  principle  another; 
sport  or  social  ambition  another.  And  these  vari- 
ous lives  may  be  lived  upon  mutually  inconsistent, 
plans.  We  forget  one  part  of  ourselves  in  our 
temporary  absorption  in  some  other  part.  Ancf 
if,  as  our  naturally  complex  and  often  conflicting 
motives  determine,  these  our  various  lives  are  out ; 
of  harmony  with  one  another,  we  constantly  do 
irrevocable  deeds  that  emphasise  and  perpetuate 
the  results  of  this  disharmony.  And  as  we  grow 
older  our  motives  alter;  yet  because  of  our  natural 
narrowness  of  interest,  we  often  do  not  recognise 
the  change.  Our  youth  consequently  lays  a  poor 
foundation  for  our  age;  or  perhaps  our  mature  life 
makes  naught  of.  the  aspirations  of  our  youth.  We 
thus  come  to  spend  a  great  part  of  our  days  thwart-' 
ing  ourselves  through  the  results  of  our  fickleness, 
yet  without  knowing  who  it  is  that  thwarts  us.  We 
love,  and,  like  Siegfried,  forget  our  former  beloved, 
and  perhaps  live  to  feel  the  fatal  spear-thrust  that 
avenges  our  treason  to  our  own  past.  The  deeper 
tragedies  of  life  largely  result  from  this  our  narrow- 
ness of  view. 

But  over  against  this  narrowness  of  our  ordinary  - 
activities  there,  indeed,  stand  certain  moments  when 
we  get  a  wider  vision  of  ourselves,  when  we  review 
life,  or  foresee  it  with  a  broad  outlook.  These  are, 
indeed,  moments  of  insight.  We  all  know  how 
tragic  they  often  are,  because  they  show  us  at  a 
glance  Jbow  with  the  left  hand  we  have  undone  the 


\ 


50  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

right  hand's  work,  how  we  have  loved  and  for- 
gotten, how  we  have  sworn  fealty  to  many  masters, 
and  have  cheated  one  while  we  served  another, 
how  absorption  in  business  has  made  us  unworthy  of 
home,  or  how  we  have  wantonly  sacrificed  a  friend  in 
order  to  win  a  game,  or  gained  our  bit  of  the  world 
3hrough  what,  upon  review,  we  have  to  call  the  loss 
of  our  souls.  Such  moments  of  insight  come  to  us 
sometimes  when  our  friends  die,  and  when  memory 
reminds  us  of  our  neglected  debts  of  love  or  of 
gratitude  to  them,  or  when  worldly  defeat  reawakens 
the  long-forgotten  unworldly  aspirations  that  we 
abandoned  in  order  to  do  what  has  ended  in  earn- 
ing the  defeat.  These  are,  I  repeat,  often  tragic 
moments.  But  they  enlighten.  And  they  show  us 
our  need.  And  they  arise  as  naturally  as  does  any 
other  incident  of  a  reasonable  life. 

What  need  do  they  show?  I  answer,  the  need  to 
possess  what  by  mere  nature  we  never  come  to 
possess,  namely,  the  power  to  "  see  life  steadily  and 
see  it  whole,"  and  then  to  live  triumphantly  in  the 
light  of  this  vision.  Can  a  plain  man  who  is  no 
philosopher  feel  this  need?  I  answer,  Yes,  when- 
ever he  has  his  moments  of  vision;  whenever  he 
feels  the  longing  for  the  clean,  straight,  unsw^erving 
will,  for  the  hearty  whole  life;  whenever  he  sees 
and  regrets  his  fickleness,  just  because  it  means 
self-defeat;  whenever  he  seeks  to  be  true  to  him- 
self. At  such  morngnt  his  highest  aim-  is  the  aim 
that  there  should  be  a  highest  aim  in  life,  and  that 


^ 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  51 

this  aim  should  win  what  it  seeks.  He  has  the 
longing,  however  inarticulate,  for  integrity  of  spirit 
and  for  success  in  winning  the  fruits  of  integrity. 

When  the  plain  man  feels  wh&,t  I  venture  thus 
to  formulate,  how  will  he  express  his  longing?  He 
will,  of  course,  not  use  my  present  formulas.  He 
will  seize  upon  whatever  expressions  the  creed  or 
the  language  of  his  tribe  may  suggest  to  him.  He 
may  say,  and  perhaps  truthfully:  "This  is  the 
ideal  that  God  sets  before  me.  This  is  the  divine 
will  regarding  my  life."  For  at  such  times  he  con- 
ceives of  God  as  the  being  who  has  widest  vision 
and  who  knows  him  best.  Therefore  he  conceives 
of  God's  plan  as  the  fulfilment  of  his  own  rational 
plan.  But  the  interior  source  of  the  plain  man% 
view  regarding  the  divine  will  is  simply  his  better 
vision  of  the  meaning  of  his  life,  the  vision  that 
comes  at  moments  when  he  is  not  forgetful  of  the 
whole;  when  he  does  not  want  to  swear  fidelity  to 
one  beloved,  and  then,  like  Siegfried,  pursue  and  win 
another;  when  he  wants  to  be  true  to  the  whole  of 
himself.  No  wonder  that  he,  indeed,  conceives  this 
supreme  goal  of  life  as  the  goal  set  for  him  by  some 
will  higher  than  his  own  private  will.  He  is  right. 
For,  as  we  shall  see,  throughout  our  later  study, 
we  are,  indeed,  helpless  either  {o  hold  before  us  this 
our  personal  vision  of  the  triumphant  life  and  of  the 
unity  of  the  spirit,  or  to  turn  the  vision  into  a  prac- 
tical reality,  unless  we  come  into  touch  and  keep  in 
touch  with  an  order  of  spiritual  existence  which  is 


52  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

in  a  perfectly  genuine  sense  superhuman,  and  in 
the  same  sense  supernatural,  and  which  certainly  is 
not  our  natural  selves. 

But  in  any  case  the  plain  man  must  needs  inter- 
pret his  vision  of  the  ideal  in  terms  of  whatever 
conception  of  God,  or  of  the  triumphant  life,  or  of 
spiritual  power,  his  traditions  and  his  stage  of  per- 
sonal development  may  suggest  to  him.  Hence 
the  endless  varieties  in  the  formulation  of  the  religi- 
ous ideal.  Whatever  is  suggested  to  a  man,  at  his 
moments  of  wider  vision,  as  a  law  or  as  a  motive 
which,  if  it  were  the  ruling  motive  or  the  supreme 
law  would  make  life  a  consistent  whole — this  he 
takes  to  be  God's  will,  or  the  truth  that  is  to  save 
him  if,  indeed,  salvation  is  possible. 

If  this  account  of  the  sources  of  the  religious 
motive  is  right,  we  need  not  view  the  religious 
interest  as  the  result  of  an  arbitrary  intrusion  from 
above — as  if  the  gods  loved  to  disturb  us  and  to 
trouble  our  peace.  Nor  need  we,  with  James,  speak 
of  a  marvellous  and  capricious  uprush  from  below 
the  level  of  our  natural  consciousness.  Yet  just  as 
little  need  we  think  of  religion  as  having  no  con- 
cern with  what  is,  indeed,  superhuman.  Religion  is, 
indeed,  our  own  affair;  for  it  grows  out  of  our  per- 
sonal vision  of  the  tran'sformation  that  a  divinely 
enlarged  power  to  comprehend,  to  survey,  to  har- 
monise, to  triumph  over  our  natural  life  would 
give.  This  vision  comes  to  us  at  moments,  in 
glimpses — and  is  seen  through  a  glass  darkly.    Our 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  53 

need  is  to  see  face  to  face  and  to  live  in  the  light 
thus  to  be  discovered.  And  so  to  live  would  be 
salvation.  The  word  salvation  is  fitting,  because 
the  need  is  so  great  and  because  the  transformation 
would  be  so  profound.  The  endlessly  various  inter- 
pretations of  this  one  ideal  and  of  the  nature  of  the 
saving  process  are  due  to  the  wealth  of  life  and  to 
the  imposing  multitude  of  motives  and  of  experi- 
ences that  the  religious  consciousness  has  to  con- 
sider. But  beneath  and  above  all  the  varieties  of 
religious  experience  lies  the  effort  to  win  in  reality 
what  the  vision  of  the  harmonious  and  triumphant 
life  suggests  to  us  in  our  moments  of  clearness. 
Since  our  own  natures  leave  us  hopelessly  remote 
from  this  goal,  while  our  glimpses  of  spiritual  har- 
mony and  power  reveal  to  us  its  preciousness,  our 
religious  need  is  supreme,  and  is  accompanied  with 
the  perfectly  well-warranted  assurance  that  we  can- 
not attain  the  goal  unless  we  can  get  into  some  sort 
of  communion  with  a  real  life  infinitely  richer  than 
our  own — a  life  that  is  guided  by  a  perfect  abd 
unwavering  vision, -and  that  somehow  conquers  and 
annuls  all  fickleness,  conflict,  and  estrangement. 
Such  a  life  rightly  seems  to  us  to  bfe  superhuman 
in  its  breadth  of  view  and  in  its  spiritual  power,  if 
indeed  there  be  such  a  life  at  all.  If  there  is  no 
such  life,  none  the  less  we  need  it,  and  so  need 
salvation.  If  salvation  is  possible,  then  there  is  in 
the  universe  some  being  that  knows  us,  and  that  is 
the  master  of  life.     And  we  seek  ourselves  to  know 


54  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

even  as  we  are  known  and  to  live  as  the  wise  one 
would  have  us  live. 

Thus  simple  and,  for  all  to  whom  even  the  occa- 
sional moments  of  wider  vision  come,  universal  are 
the  religious  motives.  James  was  wrong  when  he 
sought  them  in  any  capricious  interference  of  the 
subliminal  self,  or  of  its  superhuman  controls,  with 
our  natural  selves.  It  is  we  who  in  our  natural 
liv'es  are  capricious  and  narrowly  interfere  with 
our  own  freedom.  It  is  we  who  are  the  disturbers 
of  our  own  peace.  The  religious  ideal  grows  out 
of  the  vision  of  a  spiritual  freedom  and  peace  which 
are  not  naturally  ours.  No  two  of  us  get  that  vision 
in  quite  the  same  way.  But  all  its  forms  show  us 
the  same  far-off  shining  light.  The  problem  of 
religious  insight  is  the  problem  whether  that  light 
is  a  mirage. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  men  differ  as  to  their  special 
efforts  to  solve  such  a  problem.  But  it  is  now  our 
task  to  seek  for  further  sources  of  insight. 

IV 

The  foregoing  discussion  may  seem  to  have  led 
us  far  from  the  study  of  our  social  experience  as  a 
source  of  religious  insight.  But  in  fact  it  is  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  that  study  and  leads  us  very 
near  to  it. 

If  one  principal  source  of  our  need  of  salvation  is 
the  natural  narrowness  of  our  view  of  the  meaning 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  55 

of  our  own  purposes  and  motives,  and  the  conse- 
quent fickleness  and  the  forgetful  inconsistency  with 
which  we  usually  live  out  our  days,  it  seems  right, 
in  searching  for  a  way  that  may  lead  toward  salva- 
tion, to  get  such  help  as  we  can  by  looking  to  our 
normal  social  experience  for  whatever  guidance  it 
can  give.  The  social  world  is  wide,  even  if  it  is 
still  full  of  conflict.  It  broadens  our  outlook  at 
every  turn.  A  man  corrects  his  own  narrowness 
by  trying  to  share  his  fellow's  point  of  view.  Our 
social  responsibilities  tend  to  set  limits  to  our 
fickleness.  Social  discipline  removes  some  of  our 
inner  conflicts,  by  teaching  us  not  to  indulge  ca- 
prices. Human  companionship  may  calm,  may 
steady  our  vision,  may  bring  us  into  intercourse 
with  what  is  in  general  much  better  than  a  man's 
subliminal  self,  namely,  his  public,  his  humane,  his 
greater  social  self,  wherein  he  finds  his  soul  and  its 
interests  writ  large.  Perhaps,  then,  whatever  the 
ultimate  goal,  the  way  out  of  the  distractions  of  the 
natural  self,  the  way  toward  the  divine  insight  and 
power  that  we  need,  lies  through  our  social  experi- 
ence. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  in  the  religious  discussions 
of  to-day  our  social  experience  is  that  source  of 
insight  upon  which  a  great  number  of  our  teachers, 
whether  they  are  professional  religious  teachers  or 
not,  most  frequently  insist.  Our  present  time  is 
an  age  of  great  concern  wath  social  problems  and 
reforms.  No  wonder,  then,  that  we  have  all  learned 
to  widen  our  vision,  and  to  control  our  wayward- 


56  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ness,  by  remembering  that  man  is  a  being  who  can 
be  neither  understood  nor  directed  in  case  you  try 
to  view  him  in  isolation.  As  for  salvation,  many  of 
our  most  influential  leaders  now  teach  us  that  the 
problem  of  our  day  is  the  problem  of  saving,  not 
the  individual  as  an  individual,  but  the  social  order 
as  a  whole.  The  two  tendencies  which  seem  to  be 
most  potent  in  the  political  realm  are  the  general 
tendencies  known  by  the  admittedly  vague  names 
of  democracy  and  socialism.  Solidarity,  collectiv- 
ism, the  common  life — these  are  the  watchwords 
of  some  of  the  most  widely  influential  movements 
of  our  time. 

And  these  watchwords  have,  for  many  of  us,  not 
only  a  political,  but  a  religious  meaning.  I  need 
not  remind  you  of  the  popular  influence  of  such 
dramas  as  "The  Servant  in  the  House,"  or  of  the 
numbers  of  clergymen  to  whom  the  preaching  of 
religion  has  come  to  mean,  in  the  main,  the  preach- 
ing of  beneficent  social  reforms.  If  teachers  who 
thus  view  religion  as,  on  the  whole,  a  movement 
toward  the  increase  of  social  welfare  are  asked 
what  their  counsel  is  to  the  individual  regarding 
the  salvation  of  his  soul,  they  will  reply:  "If  you 
want  to  be  saved,  come  out  of  yourself."  Some  of 
them  would  add :  "Forget  yourself."  But  whether 
they  use  this  latter  extremely  ambiguous  and  doubt- 
ful form  of  advice,  they  very  generally  agree  that 
to  seek  to  save  your  own  soul  by  any  merely  or 
mainly  inward  and  non-social  process  is  to  secure 
perdition.     "It  is  love  that  saves,"  they  are  fond  of 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  57 

telling  us.  And  in  this  doctrine,  as  interpreted  in 
the  light  of  our  modern  social  movements,  many  see 
the  entire  essence  of  Christianity  adapted  to  our 
present  situation. 

Nor  is  the  tendency  here  in  question  limited  to 
the  practical  counsels  of  which  I  have  just  reminded 
you.  There  are  those  students  of  the  psychology 
and  the  philosophy  of  religion  who  are  disposed  to 
conceive  that  the  whole  essence  of  the  religion  of  all 
times,  the  entire  meaning  of  religious  beliefs  and 
practices,  can  be  exhaustively  and  accurately  de- 
scribed in  the  purely  human  and  social  terms  which 
these  practical  counsels  attempt  to  embody.  A 
recent  writer  on  the  psychology  of  religion  defines 
religion  as  man's  consciousness  of  his  highest  social 
values,  and  maintains  that  all  religious  beliefs  are 
attempts  to  express  this  consciousness  in  whatever 
terms  a  given  stage  of  civilisation  makes  natural 
and  possible. 

One  can  easily  suggest  to  any  student  of  general 
history  some  of  the  facts  which  such  a  writer  has 
in  mind.  Have  not  the  gods  often  been  conceived 
as  tribal  deities,  and  so  simply  as  representatives  of 
the  welfare  and  of  the  will  of  the  community  over 
against  the  waywardness  and  the  capriciousness  of 
the  individual?  Was  not  the  transition  from  poly- 
theism to  the  various  forms  of  pantheism  and  of 
monotheism  determined  by  the  social  processes  that 
formed  kingdoms  or  empires,  and  that  finally  led 
over  to  the  modern  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the 


58  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

common  interest  of  an  ideally  united  humanity? 
Were  not  the  prophets  of  Israel  social  reformers? 
Was  not  the  work  of  Jesus  an  anticipation  and  a 
prophecy  of  the  coming  consciousness  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  as  the  lovers  of  mankind  now  con- 
ceive that  brotherhood?  What  has  religion  had  to 
teach  us,  some  will  insistently  ask,  more  saving, 
unifying,  sustaining,  than  this  love  of  man  for  man? 

From  such  a  point  of  view,  as  you  see,  our  social 
experience  is  our  principal  source  of  religious  insight. 
And  the  salvation  that  this  insight  brings  to  our 
knowledge  is  salvation  through  the  fostering  of 
human  brotherhood.  Such  salvation  accrues  to  the 
individual  so  far  as  he  gives  himself  over  to  the 
service  of  man,  and  to  mankind  in  so  far  as  men 
can  only  be  saved  together  and  not  separately. 

I  am  just  now  depicting,  not  judging,  a  view  con- 
cerning the  solution  of  religious  problems  which 
you  know  to  be,  in  our  day,  as  potent  as  it  is  varied 
and  problematic  in  its  teaching.  Can  this  view 
satisfy?  Does  this  way  of  stating  the  case  really 
indicate  to  us  any  adequate  source  of  religious 
insight,  any  way  in  which  we  can  define  the  true 
salvation  of  man? 


We  cannot  answer  this  question  without  taking 
account  of  the  views  of  those  of  our  recent  teachers 
to  whom  this  purely  social  theory  of  the  religious 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  59 

objects  and  values  is  indeed  profoundly  unsatis- 
factory. That  such  opponents  of  the  adequacy  of 
the  interpretation  of  religion  just  suggested  are  to 
be  found  amongst  the  believers  in  familiar  religi- 
ous traditions,  we  need  not  at  any  length  set  forth. 
The  traditions  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world 
do  not  interpret  the  old  faiths  in  this  way,  just 
because  these  religious  traditions  all  agree  in  regard- 
ing the  human  social  order  as  something  which 
exists  for  the  sake  of  an  essentially  superhuman 
order.  As  these  various  faiths  assert,  man  can 
never  be  saved  by  purely  human  means,  whether 
you  call  these  means  preventive  medicine,  or  social- 
ism, or  universal  brotherhood,  or  even  love,  so  long 
as  love  means  simply  human  love.  As  for  Chris- 
tianity, in  all  its  older  forms,  it  has  emphasised 
the  love  of  man,  but  always  in  a  certain  union  with 
the  love  of  God  which  tradition  could  never  con- 
ceive as  adequately  expressible  in  terms  of  our 
recent  social  movements.  The  "Servant  in  the 
House"  is  supposed  to  be  a  modern  apparition  of 
the  Christ;  but  he  is  explicitly  a  heretic  regarding 
the  old  faith  of  the  church. 

But  with  tradition  as  tradition,  these  lectures 
have  to  do  only  by  way  of  occasional  illustration. 
What  interests  us  more,  for  our  present  purpose,  is 
the  fact  that,  despite  the  predominance  of  the  social 
interpretations  of  religion  of  which  I  have  just 
reminded  you,  there  are  still  some  of  our  recent 
teachers  who  stoutly  insist  that  our  social  experi- 


60  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ence  does  not   adequately   show  us  any  way  of 
salvation  whatever. 

And  here  first  I  must  call  attention  to  certain  of 
the  most  modern  and  least  theologically  disposed 
of  our  leaders,  namely,  to  those  who  emphasise  the 
most  characteristic  recent  forms  of  individualism. 
I  have  mentioned  Nietzsche  in  my  former  lecture. 
Surely  he  stands  for  opposition  to  tradition  and  he 
expresses  tendencies  that  are  potent  to-day.  But 
while  he  lived  and  wrote,  he  aspired  to  be  a  sort  of 
Antichrist,  and  preached  the  doctrine  that  a  religion 
of  love  can  never  save,  because,  as  he  insists,  what 
the  self  needs  is  power,  and  power  is  not  to  be 
won  by  attempting  to  please  a  world  of  slaves. 
Nietzsche  may  seem  to  you,  as  he  has  seemed  to  so 
many,  a  hopeless  abnormity;  but  his  Titanism  is  in 
fact  a  wayward  modern  expression  of  a  motive  that 
has  always  played  its  notable  part  in  the  search 
for  salvation,  ever  since  heroism  and  the  resolute 
will  were  first  discovered  by  man.  Nietzsche's 
insight  too,  such  as  it  is,  is  a  social  insight.  It 
comes  through  noting  that,  even  if  the  individual 
needs  his  social  world  as  a  means  of  grace  and  a 
gateway  to  salvation,  the  social  order,  in  its  turn, 
needs  individuals  that  are  worth  saving,  and  can 
never  be  saved  unless  it  expresses  itself  through 
the  deeds  and  the  inner  life  of  souls  deeply  con- 
scious of  the  dignity  of  selfhood,  of  the  infinite 
worth  of  unique  and  intensely  conscious  personal 
life. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  61 

As  a  fact,  individualism  is  as  potent  an  ethical 
motive  in  the  life  of  to-day  as  is  the  collectivism 
just  characterised.  Each  of  these  tendencies,  in 
our  present  social  order,  feeds  upon  and  intensifies 
the  other.  Socialism  opposes,  and  yet  inevitably 
encourages,  the  purposes  of  the  very  individual 
who  feels  his  social  ties  as  a  galling  restraint.  It 
preaches  solidarity  and  brotherhood  and  love;  but 
wins  a  ready  hearing  from  those  who  view  all  these 
tendencies  mainly  as  means  whereby  they  may 
hope  to  have  their  own  way,  and  to  become,  as 
Nietzsche's  Superman,  "beyond  good  and  evil" — 
masters  in  the  coming  world  of  triumphant  democ- 
racy. The  social  experience  of  our  time  is  full  of 
ambiguous  lessons.  Its  way  toward  salvation  leads 
not  only  over  the  Hill  of  DiflSculty,  but  both  ways 
around  the  hill;  and  it  shows  us  no  one  straight  and 
narrow  road  to  peace.  Whoever  would  traverse  its 
wilderness  and  reach  salvation  needs  to  supplement 
his  social  insight  by  a  use  of  other  and  deeper 
sources. 

And  as  to  what  these  deeper  sources  of  insight 
are,  the  teacher  whom  I  have  already  repeatedly 
cited — William  James — asserts  a  doctrine  that,  as 
you  already  know,  I  do  not  regard  as  adequate,  but 
that  I  must  again  here  emphasise,  because  its  con- 
trast with  that  social  theory  of  religion  which  I 
just  characterised  is  so  instructive. 

James,  in  his  "Varieties  of  Religious  Experience," 
ghpws  the  utmost  liberality  toward  differences  of 


62  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

faith,  and  insists  in  the  opening  chapters  of  his 
book  that  religious  experience  is  a  field  where  one 
must  beware  of  defining  sharp  boundary  lines  or 
of  showing  a  false  exclusiveness.  Yet  one  boundary 
line  he  himself  defines  with  the  greatest  sharpness; 
and  in  respect  of  one  matter  he  is  rigidly  exclusive. 
Religious  experience,  he  insists,  is,  as  you  will 
remember  from  our  first  lecture,  the  experience  of 
an  individual  who  feels  himself  to  be  "alone  with 
the  divine."  And  the  social  types  of  religious  expe- 
rience James  rigidly  excludes  from  the  "varieties" 
whereof  he  takes  account.    And  James's  reason  for 

;  this  procedure  is  explicit.  In  its  social  aspects 
religion,    so   he   insists,    always   becomes,    or   has 

.already  become,  conventional.  James  no  longer 
finds  in  the  religious  life  of  communities  the  novelty 
and  independence  of  vision  which  he  prizes.  The 
essence  of  true  religious  experience  lies,  for  him,  in 
its  originality,  in  its  spontaneity,  and  so  in  the  very 
solitude  which  is  a  condition,  to  James's  mind,  for 
the  discovery  of  that  which  saves. 

The  words  "originality"  and  "spontaneity"  em- 
phasise the  features  which,  as  I  think,  James  most 
meant  to  emphasise.  The  problem  of  salvation,  for 
James,  must  be  an  essentially  individual  problem; 
for  nobody  else  ever  faced  your  need  of  salvation, 
or  had  your  personal  issues  to  meet.  If  you  win 
religious  insight,  you  will  have  to  win  it  very  much 
as  you  will  have  to  die — alone.  Of  course  James 
does  not  hesitate  to  test  the  value  of  religious  expe- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  63 

rience,  in  his  pragmatic  fashion,  by  its  social  as 
well  as  by  its  individual  consequences.  The  fruits 
of  the  spirit  accrue  to  the  general  advantage;  and 
the  saint,  in  James's  opinion,  must  indeed  under- 
take to  edify,  not  only  himself,  but  also  his  brethren. 
But  the  effects  of  religious  insight  must  not  be  con- 
fused with  the  sources.  James  insists  that  the 
sources  are  mainly  from  within  the  individual  and 
are  only  incidentally  social.  A  religious  discovery 
has  in  common  with  a  poetic  creation  the  fact  that 
the  religious  genius,  like  the  artist,  sees  his  vision, 
and  produces  his  spiritual  miracle,  in  solitude. 

If  you  ask  whether  this  position  which  James 
assumes  is  anything  more  than  his  own  private 
opinion,  and  if  you  want  to  know  his  grounds  for  it, 
a  closer  examination  of  his  book  will  show  you  why 
he  thus  deliberately  turns  his  back  upon  the  favour- 
ite recent  interpretation  of  religion  as  an  essentially 
social  phenomenon.  James,  in  common  with  the 
traditional  faiths,  although  not  in  conformity  with 
their  formulas,  always  conceived  religious  experience 
as  an  intercourse  with  objects  and  with  powers 
that,  whatever  their  deeper  bases  in  our  "sublimi- 
nal" nature,  do  not  adequately  express  themselves 
in  our  everyday,  worldly,  overt  human  nature. 
And  in  our  social  life,  where  the  conventional 
reigns,  where  man  imitates  man  or  contends  with 
man,  where  crowds  bustle  and  the  small-talk  or 
the  passionate  struggle  of  the  day  fill  the  mind, 
where  lovers  pursue  their  beloved  and  are  jealous 


»v 


64  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

of  their  rivals,  and  laborers  toil  and  sweat,  and 
worldly  authorities  display  their  pomp,  you  meet 
not  the  solution,  but  the  problem  of  life.  James, 
as  man,  was  full  of  social  interests,  and,  as  psy- 
chologist, was  fond  of  studying  social  processes. 
But  when  a  man  wants  peace  and  spiritual  triumph, 
James  observes  that,  as  an  empirical  fact,  he  does 
not  readily  find  them  in  the  market-place,  or  on  the 
battle-field,  or  in  the  law  courts,  unless,  indeed,  he 
comes  to  these  places  already  full  of  the  light  that 
the  saintly  souls  have  often  found  in  the  wilderness 
or  in  their  meditations.  In  brief,  James  always 
emphasises  the  mystical  element  in  religious  expe- 
rience and  is  full  of  the  assurance  that  religion 
cannot  find  its  food  in  the  commonplace;  while 
our  social  life  is  a  realm  where  the  commonplace 
holds  sway.  Or  again,  James  holds  that  when  the 
faithful  have  thought  of  their  religious  experience  as 
an  intercourse  with  beings  of  a  level  wholly  super- 
human, they  may,  indeed,  have  been  wrong  in  their 
creeds,  but  were  right  in  holding  that  man  as  he 
lives  in  his  social  world  can  never  save  man.  Our 
social  consciousness  is  too  barefaced  and  open  in 
its  union  of  triviality  and  pathos.  What  we  want 
as  the  saving  power  is,  for  a  teacher  such  as  James, 
something  more  mysterious,  deep,  subconscious  or 
superconscious,  and  in  this  sense,  indeed,  super- 
human. 

Still  I  am  only  depicting,  not  yet  judging.     I  have 
now  briefly  stated  opinions  that  favour  and  opinions 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  65 

that  oppose  an  interpretation  of  religious  insight  in 
terms  of  our  social  experience.  But  what  are  the 
merits  of  the  case?  In  what  sense  can  there  be  a 
religion  of  the  social  consciousness? 

VI 

The  answer  to  this  question  involves,  I  think, 
two  considerations,  both  of  them  exemplified  by 
the  various  views  here  in  question,  both  of  them 
familiar,  both  of  them  easily  misinterpreted.  The 
first  is  the  very  consideration  upon  which  our  popu- 
lar teachers  of  salvation  through  love  most  insist. 
We  ourselves  came  upon  that  consideration  at  the 
close  of  our  first  lecture.  Man  is,  indeed,  a  being 
who  cannot  be  saved  alone,  however  much  solitude 
may  help  him,  at  times,  toward  insight.  For  he  is 
bound  to  his  brethren  by  spiritual  links  that  cannot 
be  broken.  The  second  consideration  is  this:  So 
long  as  man  views  his  fellow-man  merely  as  fellow- 
man,  he  only  complicates  his  problem,  for  both  he 
and  his  fellow  equally  need  salvation.  Their  plight 
is  common;  their  very  need  of  salvation  chains 
them  together  in  the  prison  of  human  sorrow.  If, 
to  adapt  the  symbolism  of  ancient  stories  to  our 
case,  the  angel  of  love  is  to  appear  in  their  prison, 
is  to  loosen  their  chains,  is  to  open  the  doors,  it 
must  be,  in  some  wise,  as  an  angel,  not  as  a  merely 
human  presence,  that  love  must  appear. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  indicate  wherein  lies  the 


66  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

strength  and  the  weakness,  the  irresistible  authority 
and  the  pathetic  Umitation  of  our  social  experience 
as  a  religious  guide,  and  the  best  way  also  to  indi- 
cate its  true  relations  to  the  religious  experience  of 
the  human  individual,  is  to  remind  ourselves  of  a 
very  few  familiar  cases  in  which  an  individual  finds 
that  his  own  way  toward  salvation,  if  any  such  way 
is  to  exist  for  him  at  all,  lies  through  his  social 
world,  so  that  he  cannot  be  saved  without  the  help 
of  his  fellows. 

Our  first  instance  shall  be  an  extreme  one,  in 
which  the  sense  of  need  is  intense  and  the  longing 
for  salvation  acute,  but  where  there  is  little  or  no 
hope  of  finding  the  way,  although  one  knows  that 
if  the  way  could  be  found  it  would  bring  one  into 
touch  with  a  new  type  of  human  companionship. 
We  all  know  how  the  sense  of  guilt  may  take  the 
form  of  a  feeling  of  overwhelming  loneliness.  Now 
the  sense  of  guilt,  if  deep  and  pervasive  and  passion- 
ate, involves  at  least  a  dim  recognition  that  there 
is  some  central  aim  of  life  and  that  one  has  come 
hopelessly  short  of  that  aim.  I  may  regret  a  blunder, 
and  yet  have  no  hint  that  there  is  any  unified  and 
supreme  ideal  of  life.  For  a  blunder  is  a  special 
affair  involving  the  missing  of  some  particular  aim. 
I  may  even  bitterly  repent  a  fault,  and  still  think 
of  that  fault  as  a  refusal  to  pursue  some  one  separate 
moral  purpose — a  violation  of  this  or  of  that  maxim 
of  conduct.  But  the  true  sense  of  guilt  in  its 
greater  manifestation  involves  a  confession  that  the 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  67 

whole  self  is  somehow  tainted,  the  whole  Hfe,  for 
the  time  being,  wrecked.  But  the  bankruptcy  of 
the  self  implies  that  there  is  one  highest  purpose 
which  gives  the  self  its  value;  the  sense  of  total 
failure  is  itself  a  revelation  of  the  value  of  what  was 
lost.  Hence  the  highly  idealising  tendency  of  the 
great  experiences  of  moral  suffering.  They  lead  us 
to  think  not  of  this  or  of  that  special  good,  but  of 
salvation  and  perdition  in  their  general  bearing 
upon  life.  The  depth  of  the  despair  shows  the 
grandeur  of  what  has  been  missed;  and  it  is  there- 
fore not  surprising  that  experiences  of  this  sort 
have  been,  for  so  many,  the  beginnings  of  religious 
insight.  To  believe  that  one  is  cut  off  from  salva- 
tion may  be  the  very  crisis  that  in  the  end  saves. 

Now  some  of  those  who  feel  this  overmastering 
might  of  their  guilt  lay  most  stress  upon  their  assur- 
ance that  God  has  condemned  them.  And  religi- 
ous tradition  has  of  course  emphasised  this  way  of 
stating  the  case.  But  it  is  perfectly  natural,  and  is 
surely  a  humane  experience,  to  feel  the  sense  of 
guilt  primarily  in  the  form  of  a  belief  that  one  is 
an  outcast  from  human  sympathy  and  is  hopelessly 
alone.  The  more  abnormal  types  of  the  sense  of 
guilt,  in  nervous  patients,  frequently  exemplify  this 
terror  of  the  lonely  soul,  this  inner  grief  over  the 
homelessness  of  the  remorseful  outcast.  But  actual 
guilt  may  be  present  with  or  without  the  more 
abnormal  nervous  conditions  just  mentioned,  and, 
when  present,  may  bring  home  to  the  rueful  mind 


68  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  despair  of  the  awakened  but  forsaken  sinner, 
and  may  bring  it  in  the  form  of  the  feeling  of  guilty 
solitude. 

A  well-known  expression  of  such  a  mood  you  find 
in  Kipling's  lyric  of  the  "  Poor  Httle  sheep  that  have 
gone  astray."  In  these  verses  the  outcast  sons  of 
good  families,  the  "gentlemen-rankers,"  dwell  to- 
gether in  an  agonised  companionship  of  common 
lonehness.  Their  guilt  and  their  lost  homes  are 
for  them  inseparably  associated. 

Or  again:  Beneath  all  the  fantastic  imagery  of 
Coleridge's  "Ancient  Mariner,"  the  poet  uses  a  per- 
fectly recognisable  type  of  the  sense  of  guilt  as  the 
means  to  make  his  tale  of  wonders  seem,  despite 
all  its  impossibilities,  human  and  even  plausible. 
The  incidents  are  the  miracles  of  a  magic  dream; 
but  the  human  nature  depicted  is  as  real  as  is  the 
torment  of  any  guilty  conscience.  Somehow — no 
matter  how,  or  under  how  arbitrary  conditions — 
the  hero  has  committed  a  crime  without  precisely 
intending  it  to  be  a  crime.  His  tale  is  one  of  a 
young  man's  adventurous  insolence.  His  deed  has 
all  the  too  familiar  characters  of  the  typical  sins  of 
wayward  youth.  And  that  is  why  the  gay  young  wed- 
ding guest  must  hear  his  tale.  He — the  mariner — 
in  his  own  youth,  had  consciously  meant  to  be  only 
a  little  wanton  and  cruel.  He  awakened,  as  many 
a  light-minded  youth  later  awakes,  to  find  that,  as 
a  fact,  he  had  somehow  struck  at  the  very  centre  of 
life,  at  the  heart  of  love,  at  the  laws  that  bind  the 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  69 

world  together,  at  the  spirit  of  the  universe.  When 
one  thus  awakes,  he  sees  that  nature  and  God  are 
against  him.  But,  worst  of  all,  he  has  become  a 
curse  to  his  fellows;  and  in  turn  they  curse  him; 
and  then  they  leave  him  alone  with  the  nightmare 
life  in  death  of  utter  solitude.  To  his  mind  there 
are  no  living  men.  He  sees  about  him  only  "the 
curse  in  a  dead  man's  eye."  What  life  he  can  still 
see  is  no  longer,  to  his  morbid  eyes,  really  human: 

"The  many  men,  so  beautiful! 
And  they  all  dead  did  lie; 
And  a  thousand,  thousand  slimy  things 
Lived  on;  and  so  did  I." 

The  Ancient  Mariner's  escape  from  the  horrors  of 
this  despair,  the  beginnings  of  his  salvation,  date 
from  the  first  movings  of  love  in  his  heart  toward 
all  living  beings.  His  salvation  is  won  when,  at 
the  end,  he  finds  God  along  with  the  goodly  com- 
pany at  the  kirk.  In  brief,  the  curse  of  his  guilt 
is  to  be  "  alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea."  His  salvation 
comes  in  preaching  love  and  companionship,  and  in 
uniting  himself  hereby  to  the  God  who  loves  all 
things  both  great  and  small.  ' 

Now  one  does  not  often  think  of  the  "Ancient 
Mariner"  as  a  poem  of  religious  experience;  but 
apart  from  its  brilliant  play  with  natural  magic, 
its  human  charm  actually  depends  upon  this  well- 
founded  picture  of  the  loneliness  of  guilt  and  of  the 
escape  through  loving  union  with  one's  kind.     And 


70  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  poet  deliberately  gives  to  this  picture  the  form 
and  the  sense  of  a  religious  process  of  salvation. 

If  you  turn  from  the  dreamy  product  of  Cole- 
ridge's youthful  fancy  to  the  opposite  pole  of  modern 
literature,  you  find  an  instance  of  almost  the  same 
motives  at  the  basis  of  that  most  impressive  romance 
of  the  Russian  Dostoieffsky:  "Crime  and  Punish- 
ment." Dostoieffsky  had  himself  lived  long  in 
what  he  called  "The  House  of  the  Dead,"  in  Siberia, 
before  he  learned  how  to  write  this  masterpiece. 
He  had  been  forced  to  sojourn  amongst  the  guilty 
of  the  most  various  grades.  He  had  come  to  uni- 
versalise  their  experiences  and  to  struggle  himself 
with  one  form  of  the  problem  of  salvation.  Those 
who,  like  Dante,  have  looked  upon  hell,  sometimes 
have,  indeed,  wonders  to  tell  us.  Dostoieffsky  con- 
denses the  whole  problem  of  salvation  from  guilt 
in  this  picture  of  an  individual.  Raskolnikow,  the 
hero,  after  his  thoughtfully  conceived  crime,  and 
after  his  laborious  effort  at  self-justification,  finds 
himself  the  prey  of  a  simply  overwhelming  sense 
that  he  walks  alone  amongst  men,  and  that,  in  the 
crowded  streets  of  the  city,  he  is  as  one  dead  amongst 
spectres.  There  is  nowhere,  I  think,  a  more  per- 
suasive picture  of  the  loneliness  of  great  guilt. 
Raskolnikow  could  not  be  more  the  victim  of  super- 
natural forces  if  he  were  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mari- 
ner. Like  the  Ancient  Mariner,  Raskolnikow  in 
the  end  finds  the  way  to  salvation  through  love — 
the  love  which  the  martyred  Sonia  teaches  him — 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  71 

herself,  as  our  Russian  most  persuasively  pictures 
her,  at  once  outcast  and  saint.  The  author  uses 
religious  conceptions  which  are  both  ancient  and, 
in  his  use  of  them,  unconventional.  But  the  cen- 
tral one  of  these  is  the  familiar  conception  that 
salvation  involves  a  reconciliation  both  with  the 
social  and  with  the  divine  order,  a  reconciliation 
through  love  and  suffering — an  escape  from  the 
wilderness  of  lonely  guilt  to  the  realm  where  men 
can  understand  one  another. 

In  such  elemental  ways  the  process  of  salvation 
can  be  made  to  appear  as  essentially  a  social  process, 
just  because  its  opposite,  perdition,  seems  to  mean 
banishment  from  amongst  men. 

Another  group  of  cases  presents  to  us  the  same 
need  for  human  companionship  as  a  means  to  sal- 
vation, but  presents  it  in  the  winning  guise  of  salva- 
tion beginning  through  love,  without  the  main 
stress  being  laid  upon  the  previous  despair.  In 
such  cases  the  despair  may  be  mentioned  but  at 
once  relieved.  The  religion  of  friendship  and  of 
love  is  a  familiar  human  experience.  James,  in  his 
fear  of  debasing  religion  by  romantic  or  by  grosser 
associations,  unjustly  neglects  it  in  his  study  of 
"varieties."  In  fact,  to  seem  to  find  the  divine  in 
the  person  of  your  idealised  friend  or  beloved  is  a 
perfectly  normal  way  of  beginning  your  acquaint- 
ance with  the  means  of  grace.  You  meet,  you 
love,  and — you  seem  to  be  finding  God.  Or,  to 
use  our  present  interpretation  of  what  reveals  the 


72  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

divine,  love  seems  to  furnish  you  with  a  vision  of  a 
perfect  life,  to  give  you  a  total  survey  of  the  sense 
of  your  own  life,  and  to  begin  to  show  you  how  to 
triumph.  If  there  be  any  divine  life,  you  say,  this 
is  my  vision  of  its  beauty  and  its  harmony.  So 
the  divine  appears  in  one  of  Browning's  later 
lyrics: 

"Such  a  starved  bank  of  moss. 

Till,  that  May  morn. 
Blue  ran  the  flash  across; 

Violets  were  born! 

"Sky — what  a  scowl  of  cloud 
Till,  near  and  far, 
Ray  on  ray  split  the  shroud 
Splendid!  a  star! 

**  World — how  it  walled  about 
Life  with  disgrace, 
Till  God's  own  smile  came  out; 
That  was  thy  face!" 

In  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  this  religion  of 
friendship  has  found  some  of  its  most  perfect 
expressions. 

"Haply  I  think  of  thee,  and  then  my  state. 

Like  to  the  lark's,  at  break  of  day  arising 
From  sullen  earth,  sings  hymns  at  heaven's  gate." 

And  again,  in  Mrs.  Browning's  "Sonnets  from  the 
Portuguese,"  the  religion  of  love  not  only  uses 
speech  intensely  personal,  fond,  intimate,  but  also, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  73 

and  deliberately,  accompanies  all  this  with  words  de- 
rived from  reflective  metaphysics,  or  from  theology, 
and  intended  to  express  the  miracle  that  the  nearest 
movings  of  affection  are  also  a  revelation  of  the 
highest  powers  of  the  spiritual  world. 

"How  do  I  love  thee?    Let  me  count  the  ways. 

I  love  thee  to  the  depth  and  breadth  and  height 

My  soul  can  reach,  when  feeling  out  of  sight 
For  the  ends  of  Being,  and  Ideal  Grace. 
I  love  thee  to  the  level  of  everyday's 

Most  quiet  need,  by  sun  and  candle  light. 

I  love  thee  freely,  as  men  strive  for  Right; 
I  love  thee  purely,  as  they  turn  from  Praise; 

I  love  thee  with  the  passion  put  to  use 
In  my  old  griefs,  and  with  my  childhood's  faith; 

I  love  thee  with  a  love  I  seemed  to  lose 
With  my  lost  saints, — I  love  thee  with  the  breath. 

Smiles,  tears,  of  all  my  life! — and,  if  God  choose, 
I  shall  but  love  thee  better  after  death." 

Surely  one  could  not  better  express,  than  this  son- 
net does,  the  naturalness  of  the  religious  motive — 
the  mystery  of  the  religious  object. 

And  finally,  turning  from  these  cases  to  those 
which  are  social  in  the  larger  sense,  every  patriotic 
song  which  deifies  one's  country,  every  other  form 
of  the  religion  of  patriotism,  exemplifies  the  expe- 
rience of  the  devoted  lover  of  his  country  by  teach- 
ing that  it  is  "man's  perdition  to  be  safe"  in  case 
his  social  world  calls  for  the  sacrifice  of  his  life, 
and  that  salvation  comes  through  service. 


74  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

James  is  indeed  wrong  then  to  neglect  the  social 
roads  that  lead  toward  the  experience  of  what  one 
takes  to  be  divine.  There  is  no  love  so  simple- 
minded  that,  if  it  be  true  love,  the  way  of  salva- 
tion may  not  seem  to  be  opened  through  it  to  the 
lover. 

But  observe  that,  as  we  review  these  instances, 
they  show  us  how  the  social  world  wherein  they  bid 
us  seek  our  salvation  is  a  world  whose  very  essence  is 
transformed  by  love  and  by  its  vision  into  some- 
thing that  seems  to  the  lover  mystical,  superhuman, 
and  more  than  our  literal  and  commonplace  social 
life  directly  exemplifies.  Those  who  have  failed  to 
find  in  their  actual  social  life  such  inspirations  may, 
indeed,  have  to  look,  as  the  typical  mystics  have 
generally  done,  elsewhere,  for  their  vision  of  the 
divine,  than  in  so  much  of  the  social  world  as  they 
know.  And  such  will,  indeed,  seek  their  vision  of 
salvation  in  sohtude.  When  they  tell  us  of  their  ex- 
perience, they  may  well  remind  the  social  enthusiast, 
as  well  as  the  lover,  that  the  religion  of  love  is  no 
religion  at  all,  unless  it  conceives  its  human  object 
not  only  as  this  creature,  or  as  this  collection  of 
needy  men  and  women,  but  as  a  hint,  or  revelation, 
or  incarnation  of  a  divine  process — of  a  process 
which  is  not  only  human  but  superhuman,  and  which 
can  never  be  comprehended  in  the  "mart  and  the 
crowded  street"  unless  by  the  soul  that  is  either 
mystical  enough  to  meet  God  also  "in  the  bush,"  or 
rationally  enlightened  enough  to  know  that  human 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  75 

life  is  indeed  a  revelation  of  something  that  is  also 
superhuman. 

I  conclude,  then,  for  the  moment,  thus:  Social 
experience  seems  to  lie  on  the  way  to  salvation. 
Normally  the  way  to  salvation,  if  there  be  any  such 
way,  must  lead  through  social  experience.  But 
when  our  social  experience  shows  us  any  such  way 
upward  it  does  so,  if  it  truly  does  so,  because  human 
social  life  is  the  hint,  the  likeness,  or  the  incarnation 
of  a  life  that  lies  beyond  and  above  our  present  hu- 
man existence.  For  human  society  as  it  now  is,  in 
this  world  of  care,  is  a  chaos  of  needs;  and  the  whole 
social  order  groans  and  travails  together  in  pain 
until  now,  longing  for  salvation.  It  can  be  saved, 
as  the  individual  can  be  saved,  only  in  case  there  is 
some  w^ay  that  leads  upward,  through  all  our  turmoil 
and  our  social  bickerings,  to  a  realm  where  that  vi- 
sion of  unity  and  self-possession  which  our  clearest 
moments  bring  to  us  becomes  not  merely  vision,  but 
fulfilment,  where  love  finds  its  own,  and  where  the 
power  of  the  spirit  triumphs.  Of  such  a  realm  the 
lovers  dream  and  the  religions  tell.  Let  us  appeal 
to  a  further  source  of  insight.  Concerning  the 
realities  that  we  need,  let  us  next  consult  our  Reason. 


Ill 

THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  REASON 


Ill 

THE  OFFICE  OF  THE  REASON 

Thus  far  we  have  dealt  with  sources  of  rehgious 
insight  which  are  indispensable,  but  which  confess 
their  own  inadequacy  so  soon  as  you  question  them 
closely.  Individual  experience  can  show  us,  in  its 
moments  of  wider  vision,  our  ideal,  and  its  times  of 
despair,  of  aspiration,  or  of  self-examination,  our 
need.  But  whenever  it  attempts  to  acquaint  us 
with  the  way  of  salvation,  its  deliveries  are  clouded 
by  the  mists  of  private  caprice  and  of  personal 
emotion .  Social  experience,  in  its  religious  aspects, 
helps  the  individual  to  win  the  wider  outlook,  helps 
him  also  to  find  his  way  out  of  the  lonehness  of  guilt 
and  of  failure  toward  wholeness  of  life,  and  promises 
salvation  through  love.  But,  like  individual  ex- 
perience, it  is  beset  by  what  we  have  called  the  re- 
ligious paradox.  And  it  does  not  solve  that  paradox. 
Confessing  its  own  defects,  it  still  undertakes  to  dis- 
cern how  to  overcome  them.  In  so  far  as  it  is  merely 
social  experience  it  deals  with  the  world  of  weak 
mortals,  of  futile  bickerings,  and  of  love  that,  in  this 
world,  deifies  but  never  quite  finds  its  true  beloved. 
By  virtue  of  this  transforming  love  it  indeed  gives 

79 


80  Sources  c/  Religious  Insight 

us  the  hint  that  our  social  world  may  be  an  appari- 
tion or  an  incarnation  of  some  diviner  life  than  any 
mortal  now  experiences.  Yet  how  can  mortals  thus 
ignorant  pretend  to  get  insight  into  anything  that  is 
divinely  exalted? 

Thus,  both  the  sources  of  insight  that  we  have  thus 
far  consulted  point  beyond  themselves.  Each  says, 
"If  salvation  is  possible,  then  human  life  must  be 
able  to  come  into  touch  with  a  life  whose  meaning 
is  superhuman."  Our  question  is:  "Is  there,  indeed, 
such  a  diviner  life?"  In  order  to  deal  with  this 
question,  we  have  resolved  to  consult  still  another 
source  of  insight,  namely,  our  Reason.  The  present 
lecture  must  deal  with  this  source  of  insight. 


<( 


What  does  one  mean  by  the  Reason?"  As  I 
attempt  to  answer  this  question,  with  an  especial 
effort  to  show  the  relations  of  reason  and  religion,  I 
shall  be  aided  by  reminding  you  at  the  outset  that, 
at  the  present  time,  there  is  a  widespread  tendency 
to  discredit  the  reason  as  a  source  of  any  notable  in- 
sight into  life  or  into  the  universe.  And  this  ten- 
dency depends  upon  so  defining  the  business  of  the 
reason  as  sharply  to  oppose,  on  the  one  hand,  in- 
tuition and  reason,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  reason 
and  common-sense  experience.  That  is,  some  of 
our  recent  teachers  tell  us  that  the  only  sort  of  in- 
sight which  can  be  of  any  use  in  religion  must  be 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  81 

won  by  intuitions  and  cannot  be  obtained  by  what 
these  teachers  call  the  abstract  reason.  By  intui- 
tion, at  least  in  the  religious  field,  such  men  mean 
some  sort  of  direct  feeling  of  the  nature  of  things, 
some  experience  such  as  the  mystics  have  reported, 
or  such  as  many  religious  people,  whether  technical 
mystics  or  not,  call  illumination  through  faith.  In- 
tuitions of  this  sort,  they  say,  are  our  only  guides  in 
the  religious  field.  As  opposed  to  such  direct  ap- 
prehension, the  use  of  reason  would  mean  the  effort 
to  be  guided  by  formulas,  by  explicitly  stated  ab- 
stract principles,  by  processes  of  inference,  by  cal- 
culations, or  by  logical  demonstrations.  James  is 
prominent  amongst  those  who  thus  oppose  the  ab- 
stract reason  to  the  revelations  of  intuition;  and, 
especially  in  his  later  works,  he  is  never  weary  of 
emphasising  the  inarticulate  character  of  all  our 
deepest  sources  of  religious  insight.  When  we  get 
true  religious  insight,  so  he  teaches,  we  simply  feel 
convinced  that  these  things  are  so.  If  we  try  to 
give  reasons  for  our  beliefs,  James  holds  that  the 
reasons  are  inapt  afterthoughts,  the  outcome  of 
sophistication,  or  are  at  best  useful  only  in  putting 
our  convictions  into  convenient  order  for  purposes 
of  record  or  of  teaching.  James's  favourite  state- 
ment of  the  contrast  here  in  question  identifies  the 
partisans  of  reason  with  the  defenders  of  what  he 
calls  "barren  intellectualism."  He  maintains  that 
religion  is  hindered  rather  than  helped  by  such 
people.    You    attain    conviction   by   processes    of 


82  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

which  the  "barren  intellect"  can  give  no  adequate 
account.  Conviction,  in  religious  matters,  emanates, 
according  to  James,  from  those  mysterious  depths 
of  the  subconscious  about  which  I  said  something 
in  the  last  lecture.  And  convictions  thus  resulting 
feel  overwhelming  to  the  persons  who  have  them. 
Such  convictions  are  what  many  denote  by  the  word 
"intuitions."  The  effort  to  define  abstract  prin- 
ciples, as  grounds  for  holding  your  convictions  to 
be  true,  constitutes  the  only  effort  of  the  reason  in 
religious  matters  which  James  recognises.  Accord- 
ing to  James,  such  reasoning  processes  are  inevita- 
bly bad.  And  as  a  fact,  so  he  insists,  nobody  seri- 
ously believes  in  God  because  some  theologian  or 
philosopher  pretends  to  have  demonstrated  his  ex- 
istence. On  the  contrary,  he  says,  belief  in  God 
is  intuitive  or  is  nothing  of  value.  And  reason  is 
employed  in  such  matters  merely  because  of  a  fre- 
quent overfondness  for  abstract  conceptions,  or  at 
best  because  formulas  are  useful  for  the  teachers  of 
religious  traditions. 

Another  form  of  contrast,  and  one  upon  which 
James  also  often  insists,  while  many  other  recent 
writers,  whose  interests  are  not  those  of  James,  em- 
phasise the  same  matter,  depends  upon  opposing 
reason  to  experience  in  general,  including  under  the 
latter  term  not  only  the  intuitions  of  the  devout,  but 
whatever  goes  by  the  name  experience  in  ordinary 
speech.  We  see  and  hear  and  touch,  and  by  such 
means  get  experience.    But  we  make  hypotheses  and 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  83 

deduce  their  consequences;  we  assume  premises  and 
demonstrate  conclusions;  and,  according  to  such 
writers,  what  we  then  do  constitutes  the  typical 
work  of  our  reason.  The  characteristic  of  the  reason 
is  that  it  attempts  either  to  elucidate  the  meaning 
of  an  assertion,  or  to  prove  some  proposition  to  be 
true,  without  appealing  to  experience  to  verify  the 
proposition  in  question.  And  such  work  of  the  rea- 
son, as  these  writers  tell  us,  is  of  very  limited  use, 
in  comparison  to  the  use  of  our  direct  experience  as 
a  guide.  What  is  found  to  be  true  through  empirical 
tests  is  rightly  tested.  Wliat  is  supposed  to  be 
proved  true  by  abstract  reasoning  is  thus  at  best 
made  dependent  for  its  explicit  warrant  upon  the 
presupposed  truth  of  the  premises  used  in  the  reason- 
ing process.  Or,  as  is  sometimes  said,  the  reason 
can  discover  nothing  essentially  new.  It  turns  its 
premises  over  and  over,  and  gets  out  of  them  only 
what  has  already  been  put  into  them.  Experience, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  full  of  countless  novelties;  for 
what  you  can  find  through  observation  and  experi- 
ment depends  not  upon  previous  assumptions,  but 
upon  the  skill  and  the  good  fortune  of  the  inquirer, 
and  upon  the  wealth  of  life  and  of  the  real  world. 

In  brief,  for  those  who  look  at  reason  in  this  way, 
to  use  your  reason  is  simply  to  draw  necessary  in- 
ferences from  assumed  premises.  And  no  premises, 
as  such  writers  insist,  can  warrant  any  inference 
except  the  inference  of  a  conclusion  which  is  already 
hidden  away,  so  to  speak,  in  the  premises  themselves. 


84  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Thus  reasoning,  as  they  tell  us,  is  a  process  which, 
in  the  conclusion  inferred,  merely  lets  out  of  the  bag 
the  cat  which  was  concealed  in  that  bag,  namely,  in 
the  premises.  Reason,  therefore,  is  indeed  (so  such 
writers  assert)  barren  wherever  novelty  is  sought. 
It  is  useful  only  for  purposes  of  formulation,  and  in 
certain  parts  of  the  abstract  sciences,  where  deduc- 
tion has  a  technical  place,  as  a  means  for  preparing 
the  way  for  experimental  tests.  In  life,  experience 
is  the  guide  to  true  novelty.  And  therefore,  if  re- 
ligious insight  can  be  attained  at  all,  it  must  be  due 
not  to  the  reason,  but  to  some  sort  of  religious  ex- 
perience. 

Such  objections  to  the  use  of  reason  in  the  religi- 
ous field  depend,  as  you  see,  upon  identifying  the 
reasoning  process  with  the  combination  of  two  well- 
known  mental  processes;  first,  the  process  of  form- 
ing and  using  abstract  conceptions;  secondly,  the 
process  of  analysing  assertions,  or  combinations  of 
assertions,  to  make  more  explicit  what  is  already 
contained  in  their  meaning.  Our  next  question  may 
well  be  this:  Is  such  an  account  of  the  work  of 
reason  just  to  the  actual  usage  that  common-sense 
is  accustomed  to  make  of  this  familiar  name? 


II 

To  this  question  I  must  at  once  answer  that  we  all 
of  us  daily  use  the  word  reason  as  the  name  for  a 
process,  or  a  set  of  processes,  which  certainly  can- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  85 

not  be  reduced  to  the  mere  power  to  form  and  to  use 
abstract  ideas,  and  to  analyse  the  already  prede- 
termined meaning  of  statements.    When  we  speak 
of  an  ill-tempered  or  of  a  prejudiced  man  as  "un- 
reasonable," we  do  not  merely  mean  that  he  is  un- 
able to  form  or  to  define  abstract  ideas,  or  that  he 
cannot  analyse  the  meaning  of  his  own  statements. 
For  sometimes  such  a  man  is  contentiously  thought- 
ful, and  fond  of  using  too  many  one-sided  abstrac- 
tions, and  eager  to  argue  altogether  too  vehemently. 
No,  when  we  call  him  unreasonable,  we  mean  that 
he  takes  a  narrow  view  of  his  life,  or  of  his  duties, 
or  of  the  interests  of  his  fellow-men.     We  mean,  in 
brief,  that  he  lacks  vision  for  the  true  relations  and 
for  the  total  values  of  things.     When  we  try  to  cor- 
rect this  sort  of  unreasonableness,  we  do  not  say  to 
the  petulant  or  to  the  one-sided  man:    "Go  to  the 
dictionary,  and  learn  how  to  define  your  abstract 
terms."     Sometimes  contentiously  prejudiced  men 
are  altogether  too  fond  of  the  dictionary.     Nor  do 
we  merely  urge  him  to  form  the  habit  of  analysis. 
No,  we  may  indeed  say  to  him:  "Be  reasonable"; 
but  we  mean :  "  Take  a  wider  outlook ;  see  things  not 
one  at  a  time,  but  many  at  once;   be  broad;   con- 
sider more  than  one  side;  bring  your  ideas  together; 
in  a  word,  get  insight."     For  precisely  what  I  de- 
fined in  my  opening  lecture  as  insight  is  what  we  have 
in  mind  when,  in  such  cases,  we  counsel  a  man  to  be 
reasonable.     So,  in  such  uses  of  the  word  reason, 
reason  is  not  opposed  to  intuition,  as  the  power  to 


86  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

form  abstract  ideas  is  supposed  by  James  to  be  op- 
posed to  the  power  to  see  things  by  direct  vision. 
No,  reason,  in  such  cases,  means  simply  broader  in- 
tuition, the  sort  of  seeing  that  grasps  many  views 
in  one,  that  surveys  Hfe  as  it  were  from  above,  that 
sees,  as  the  wanderer  views  the  larger  landscape 
from  a  mountain  top. 

When,  not  long  since,  in  a  famous  decision,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  called  attention 
to  what  it  called  "The  rule  of  reason,"  and  declared 
its  intention  to  judge  the  workings  of  well-known 
modern  business  methods  by  that  rule,  the  court  cer- 
tainly did  not  mean  by  "the  rule  of  reason"  the  re- 
quirement that  acts  said  to  be  "in  restraint  of 
trade"  must  be  judged  merely  through  a  process  of 
forming  abstract  ideas  or  of  analysing  the  signifi- 
cation of  assertions.  No,  the  court  was  explicitly 
opposing  certain  methods  of  estimate  which  it  re- 
garded as  falsely  abstract;  and  it  proposed  to  sub- 
stitute for  these  false  abstractions  a  mode  of  judging 
the  workings  of  certain  trade  combinations  which 
was  to  involve  taking  as  wide  and  concrete  and  prac- 
tical a  view  as  possible  of  their  total  effects.  Every- 
body who  read  the  court's  words  understood  that,  in 
this  case,  it  was  precisely  the  merely  abstract  con- 
ception of  something  technically  defined  as  a  "re- 
straint of  trade"  which  the  court  wished,  not  to 
make  sovereign,  but  to  subordinate  to  the  wider  in- 
tuition of  a  fair-minded  observer  of  the  whole  re- 
sult, of  a  given  sort  of  corporate  combination.    The 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  87 

"rule  of  reason"  was  intended  to  bring  the  whole 
question  out  of  the  realm  of  barren  abstractions  and 
of  mere  analysis,  and  nearer  to  the  realm  where  the 
trained  observation  of  the  fair  minded  man  would 
decide  the  case — nearer,  in  fact,  to  the  realm  of  in- 
tuition. Only,  the  decisive  intuition  must  be  some- 
thing broad,  and  far-seeing,  and  synthetic,  and  fair. 

Now  I  submit  that  this  meaning  of  the  word  rea- 
son is  perfectly  familiar  to  all  of  you.  Reason,  from 
this  point  of  view,  is  the  power  to  see  widely  and 
steadily  and  connectedly.  Its  true  opponent  is  not 
intuition,  but  whatever  makes  us  narrow  in  outlook, 
and  consequently  the  prey  of  our  own  caprices. 
The  unreasonable  person  is  the  person  who  can  see 
but  one  thing  at  a  time,  when  he  ought  to  see  two 
or  many  things  together;  who  can  grasp  but  one 
idea,  when  a  synthesis  of  ideas  is  required.  The 
reasonable  man  is  capable  of  synopsis,  of  viewing 
both  or  many  sides  of  a  question,  of  comparing  vari- 
ous motives,  of  taking  interest  in  a  totality  rather' 
than  in  a  scattered  multiplicity. 

You  may,  of  course,  admit  that  this  use  of  the 
word  reason  is  familiar;  and  still  you  may  say  that 
James's  contention  is  nevertheless  sound.  For,  as 
you  may  declare,  the  real  issue  is  not  regarding 
the  meanings  that  chance  to  be  linked  with  the 
word  reason,  but  regarding  the  relative  impotence 
of  that  process  which  James  chose  to  call  by  this 
name.  As  a  fact,  so  you  may  assert,  there  exists 
the   familiar  process  of  forming  abstract  concep- 


88  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

tions;  and  there  also  exists  the  process  of  drawing 
conclusions  through  an  analysis  of  what  is  already 
contained  in  the  meaning  of  the  assumed  premises. 
Whether  or  no  one  calls  these  two  processes,  in 
their  usual  combination,  by  the  name  reasoning, 
James  is  right  in  saying  that  abstractions,  and  that 
such  sorts  of  purely  analytic  abstract  reasoning  as 
he  has  in  mind,  are  incapable  of  giving  us  religious 
insight.  And  both  James  and  the  others  who  op- 
pose reason  to  concrete  experience  are  right  in  as- 
serting that  you  get  no  novel  insight  whatever 
through  mere  abstractions,  or  through  mere  analy- 
sis, but  are  dependent  for  your  advances  in  knowl- 
edge upon  experience.  Therefore,  as  you  may  con- 
tinue, the  issue  which  James  and  other  empiricists 
raise  must  not  be  evaded  by  any  appeal  to  vaguer 
uses  of  the  word  reason,  whether  common-sense 
or  the  Supreme  Court  chances  to  authorise  such 
special  forms  of  expression. 

I  fully  agree  to  the  importance  of  this  comment 
and  of  the  issue  as  thus  stated.  I  am  ready  to  con- 
sider the  issue.  But  I  also  insist  upon  estimating 
the  whole  use  of  reason  in  its  proper  context.  James, 
in  common  with  countless  other  partisans  of  intui- 
tion in  religious  matters,  is  fond  of  insisting  that  all 
our  nobler  intuitions  and  all  our  deeper  faiths  are, 
in  their  foundations,  inwardly  compelling,  but  in- 
articulate, and  that  we  degrade  them  rather  than 
help  them  when  we  define  their  meaning  in  abstract 
terms  or  employ  processes  of  explicit  demonstra- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  89 

tion  in  their  defence.  James,  in  common  with  many 
empiricists,  also  opposes  experience  in  general  to  all 
processes  of  reasoning,  and  asserts  that  the  latter 
never  teach  us  anything  novel.  The  issue,  fairly 
viewed,  is  therefore  not  a  perfectly  simple  one.  It 
involves  the  question  whether  the  two  modes  of 
getting  knowledge  between  which  we  are  asked  to 
choose  are  the  only  modes  actually  in  use.  In- 
tuition, and  experience  in  general,  are  by  James  and 
by  others  sharply  contrasted  with  certain  processes 
of  abstraction  and  of  analysis.  It  is  then  pointed 
out  that  since  these  latter  processes,  taken  by  them- 
selves, never  give  us  any  essentially  novel  insights, 
you  must  on  the  whole  cease  to  use  your  powers  of 
abstraction  and  of  analysis,  except  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  record  or  of  teaching,  or  of  some  other 
such  technical  end — computation,  analysis  of  hy- 
potheses, and  the  like.  You  must,  at  least  in  re- 
ligious matters,  depend  upon  the  uprushes  from 
your  subconscious  self  or  upon  whatever  else  is 
persuasively  inarticulate.  In  the  ultimate  decisions 
of  life,  inarticulate  intuition,  mere  faith,  and  that 
alone,  can  save  you.  Hereupon  the  perfectly  fair 
question  arises  whether  the  alternatives  are  thus 
exhaustively  stated.  Must  one  choose  between  in- 
articulate faith  and  barren  abstractions?  Must 
one  face  the  alternative:  Either  intuition  without 
reasoning,  or  else  relatively  fruitless  analysis  with- 
ous  intuition?  Perhaps  there  is  a  third  possibility. 
Perhaps  one  may  use  one's  process  of  abstraction 


90  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

as  a  sort  of  preparation  for  certain  articulate  and 
noble  intuitions  that  cannot  be  approached,  by  our 
human  sort  of  consciousness,  through  any  other  way. 
Perhaps  analysis  is  not  the  whole  process  which  de- 
termines demonstrations.  Perhaps  synthesis — the 
viewing  of  many  facts  or  principles  or  relations  in 
some  sort  of  unity  and  wholeness — perhaps  a  synoptic 
survey  of  various  articulate  truths,  can  lead  us  to 
novel  insights.  In  that  case  inarticulate  intuitions 
and  barren  abstractions  are  not  the  only  instruments 
between  which  we  must  choose.  For  in  that  case 
there  will  be  another  sort  of  aid,  a  more  explicit  sort 
of  intuition,  a  more  considerate  view  of  our  life  and 
its  meaning,  which  we  may  adopt,  and  which  may 
lead  us  to  novel  results.  And  these  results  may  be 
not  only  articulate  but  saving. 

Or,  to  state  the  issue  more  generally:  In  seeking 
for  any  sort  of  novel  truth,  have  we  only  the  choice 
between  the  experience  of  the  data  of  sense  or  of 
feeling  on  the  one  hand  and  the  analysis  of  abstract 
ideas  and  assertions  upon  the  other?  May  there  not 
be  another  source  of  knowledge?  May  not  this 
source  consist  in  the  synthetic  view  of  many  facts  in 
their  unity — in  the  grasping  of  a  complex  of  rela- 
tions in  their  total  significance?  And  may  not  just 
this  be  a  source  of  insight  which  is  employed  in  many 
of  the  processes  ordinarily  known  as  reasoning  pro- 
cesses? May  not  the  formation  of  abstract  ideas, 
when  wisely  used,  be  merely  a  means  of  helping  us 
toward  an  easier  view  of  larger  unities  of  fact  than 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  91 

our  present  sort  of  human  consciousness  could  grasp 
except  for  this  auxihary  device?  May  not  analysis 
be  merely  an  aspect,  a  part  of  our  live  thinking? 
May  not  all  genuine  demonstration  involve  syn- 
thesis as  well  as  analysis,  the  making  of  new  con- 
structions as  well  as  the  dissection  of  old  assertions? 
If  so,  then  the  issue  as  presented  by  James  and  his 
allies  is  not  rightly  stated,  because  an  essential  part 
of  its  context  is  neglected.  Abstract  conceptions 
are,  in  fact,  in  the  live  and  serious  work  of  thought, 
a  mere  preparation  for  intuitions  and  experiences  that 
lie  on  higher  levels  than  those  which,  apart  from  ab- 
stract conceptions,  we  men  can  reach.  Reasoning 
processes  are  fruitful  because  they  involve  sorts 
of  experience,  forms  of  intuition,  that  you  cannot 
reach  without  them.  In  brief,  reason  and  experi- 
ence are  not  opposed.  There  is  an  opposition  be- 
tween inarticulate  intuition  and  articulate  insight. 
There  is  also  an  opposition  between  relatively  blind 
experience  of  any  sort  and  relatively  rational  ex- 
perience. And,  in  view  of  such  oppositions,  it  will 
be  perfectly  fair  to  define  reason  as  the  power  to  get 
articulate  insight — insight  into  wholes  rather  than 
fragments.  It  will  also  be  fair  to  define  the  reason- 
ing process  as  the  process  of  getting  connected 
experience  on  a  large  scale. 

Whoever  views  the  matter  thus  will  indeed  not 
be  forced  to  be  a  one-sided  partisan  of  the  reasoning 
process  as  thus  defined.  He  will,  first,  fully  admit 
that  the  formation  of  abstract  ideas  is  but  a  means 


92  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

to  an  end,  and  that  this  end  is  the  enlargement  of 
the  range  of  our  view  of  the  connections  of  our  ex- 
perience. He  will  secondly  admit  that,  as  soon  as 
the  process  of  forming  abstract  ideas  is  pursued  as 
an  end  in  itself,  pedantry  and  formalism  result, 
whether  the  topic  be  one  of  religion,  or  of  science, 
or  of  the  world's  daily  work.  He  will  further  agree 
with  James,  and  with  the  empiricists  generally,  that 
merely  analytic  reasoning,  if  such  were,  in  its  isola- 
tion, a  possible  thing,  would  be  indeed  "  barren  intel- 
lectualism."  And  finally,  if  he  is  wise,  he  will  go 
still  further.  He  will  not  despise  instinct,  and  feel- 
ing, and  the  movings  of  faith,  and  the  inarticulate 
intuitions.  For  he  wall  know  that  all  these  things 
are  human,  are  indispensable,  and  are  the  basis  upon 
which  the  genuine  work  of  the  reason,  the  wider 
view  of  life,  must  be  carried  toward  its  fulfilment. 
For  whoever  is  to  comprehend  the  unities  of  life 
must  first  live.  Whoever  is  to  be  best  able  to  sur- 
vey the  landscape  from  the  mountain  top  must  first 
have  wandered  in  its  paths  and  its  byways,  and  must 
have  grown  familiar  with  its  valleys  and  its  recesses. 
Whoever  is  to  get  the  mature  insight  must  first  have 
become  a  little  child. 

But  whoever,  remembering  the  New  Testament 
word  about  becoming  as  a  little  child,  one-sidedly 
defends  the  inarticulate  intuitions,  as  the  onh^ 
source  of  religious  insight,  should  remember  also 
the  word  of  St.  Paul:  "When  I  was  a  child,  I  spake 
as  a  child,  I  thought  as  a  child,  I  understood  as  a 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  93 

child;  but  when  I  became  a  man  I  put  away  child- 
ish things." 

It  is  the  business  of  reason  not  to  make  naught 
of  the  indispensable  intuitions  of  the  childlike  and  of 
the  faithful,  but  to  work  toward  the  insight  such 
that,  if  we  possessed  it,  we  should  "know  even  as 
we  are  known."  That  which  is  weak  in  this  world 
may  indeed  confound  many  who  are  called  wise; 
but  there  is  no  objection  to  its  becoming  also  truly 
wise  itself.  For  then  it  would  all  the  better  know 
why  it  had  been  able  to  confound  false  wisdom. 

in 

All  such  considerations  will  seem  to  many  of  you 
hopelessly  general.  You  will  have  missed,  thus  far 
in  my  account,  concrete  instances  to  illustrate  how 
what  I  have  now  called  the  reason  actually  works, 
how  it  is  related  to  experience,  how  it  helps  us  to- 
ward the  broader  view  of  things,  how  it  makes  the 
connections  of  life  more  obvious,  how  it  raises  our 
intuitions  to  higher  levels.  And  unfortunately, 
since  I  have  no  time  to  discourse  to  you  upon  the 
science  called  Logic — the  science  part  of  whose 
proper  duty  it  is  to  define  the  nature  and  the  office 
of  what  I  have  now  called  the  reason — I  must  in- 
deed fail,  in  this  brief  summary,  to  give  you  any 
adequate  account  of  what  can  be  accomplished 
through  the  appeal  to  this  source  of  insight.  All 
that  I  shall  try  to  do,  on  this  occasion,  is  to  mention 


94  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

to  you  a  very  few  instances,  some  of  them  relatively 
trivial,  wherein,  through  reasoning  processes,  we 
actually  get  these  larger  intuitions  on  higher  levels, 
these  higher  modes  of  grasping  the  unity  of  things. 
Having  thus  very  imperfectly  exemplified  what  I 
mean  by  the  synthetic  processes  of  reasoning,  I  shall 
be  ready  barely  to  suggest  to  you,  as  I  close,  how 
the  reason  can  be,  and  is,  a  source  of  religious  in- 
sight. 

In  some  recent  logical  discussions,  and  in  partic- 
ular in  my  colleague  Professor  Hibben's  text-book 
of  logic,  there  has  been  used  an  example,  trivial  in 
itself,  but  in  its  own  way  t;>T)ical — an  example  which 
is  meant  to  show  how  there  exists  a  mental  process 
which  is  surely  worthy  of  the  name  reasoning,  and 
which  is,  nevertheless,  no  mere  process  of  forming 
abstract  ideas  and  no  mere  analysis  of  the  meaning 
of  assumed  premises,  although,  of  course,  both  ab- 
straction and  analysis  have  their  subordinate  places 
in  this  process.  The  reasoning  involved  in  this  ex- 
ample is  of  the  very  simplest  sort.  It  is  expressed 
in  an  old  story  which  many  of  you  will  have  heard. 

According  to  this  story,  an  aged  ecclesiastic,  gar- 
rulous and  reminiscent,  was  once,  in  a  social  com- 
pany, commenting  upon  the  experiences  that  had 
come  to  him  in  his  long  and  devoted  life.  Fully 
meaning  to  keep  sacred  the  secrets  of  the  confes- 
sional, the  old  man  was  nevertheless  led  to  say: 
"Ah — it  is  strange,  and  sometimes  terrible,  what, 
in  my  profession,  one  may  have  to  face  and  consider. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  95 

You  must  know,  my  friends,  my  very  first  penitent 
was — a  murderer!    I  was  appalled."    The  old  priest 
had  hardly  spoken  when  the  company  was  joined 
by  an  aged  and  prominent  nobleman  of  the  region,! 
whom  all  present  greeted  with  great  respect.     Salut-j 
ing  his  priestl}^  friend  with  no  little  reverence,  the 
nobleman  turned  to  the  company  and  said,  with 
calm  unconsciousness :  "  You  must  know,  my  friends, ; 
in  my  youth  I  was  the  very  first  person  whom  my 
honored  friend  here  ever  confessed." 

Now  observe.  The  priest  had  not  said  who  the 
murderer  was.  The  nobleman  in  his  contribution  to 
the  conversation  had  not  confessed  to  the  company 
the  murder.  He  had  not  mentioned  it  in  any  way. 
And  the  priest  had  scrupulously  avoided  mentioning 
him.  But  all  present  drew  at  once  the  reasonable 
conclusion  that,  granting  the  correctness  of  the  two 
assertions,  the  nobleman  was  a  murderer.  We,  of 
course,  must  all  agree  in  this  conclusion.  Now  is 
this  conclusion  the  result  of  a  mere  analysis  of  either 
of  the  two  assertions  made?  And  does  the  conclu- 
sion merely  result  from  our  power  to  form  abstract 
ideas?  Plainly,  the  conclusion  is  due  to  the  power 
of  all  present  to  make  a  synthesis,  or,  as  one  some-' 
times  says,  to  put  two  and  two  together.  Plainly, 
whatever  abstract  ideas  are  here  used,  it  is  not  these 
which  constitute  the  main  work  of  a  reasonable 
being  who  views  the  situation  in  which  the  noble- 
man is  placed  by  the  whole  sense  of  the  conversa- 
tion.    Reason  here  discovers  a  novel  fact  which  i 


96  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

neither  the  priest  nor  the  nobleman  had  stated. 
This  discovery  is  as  much  an  experience  as  if  it  were 
the  observation  of  an  actual  killing  of  one  man  by 
another.  Only  it  is  the  discovery  of  the  relations 
involved  in  a  synthesis  of  meanings.  This  discov- 
ery is  at  once  empirical  (yes,  in  the  broader  sense  of 
the  word  intuitive),  and  it  is  a  discovery  of  a  neces- 
sary connection.  It  is  not  due  to  mere  analysis.  It 
is  not  a  bit  of  barren  intellectualism.  It  is  not  an 
unpractical  comment.  It  is  a  discovery  that  might 
wreck  the  nobleman's  reputation,  and  that  might 
more  or  less  indirectly  lead  to  his  ultimate  convic- 
tion upon  a  capital  charge.  Now,  that  is  an  ex- 
ample, trivial  enough  if  viewed  as  a  mere  anecdote, 
but  a  typical  example,  of  the  s;yTithetic  and  con- 
structive use  of  reason  as  a  source  of  insight. 

Let  me  turn  to  another  also  at  first  sight  seem- 
ingly trivial  case.  An  English  logician,  De  Morgan, 
long  ago  called  attention  to  a  form  of  reasoning 
which,  up  to  his  time,  the  logicians  had  unduly 
neglected.  If  you  assume  that  "a  horse  is  an 
animal,"  you  can  reasonably  conclude  that  "the 
owner  of  a  horse  is  the  owner  of  an  animal";  that 
"whoever  loves  a  horse  loves  an  animal,"  and  so 
on  indefinitely.  In  brief,  as  you  at  once  see,  from 
the  one  assertion,  "A  horse  is  an  animal,"  there 
rationally  follow  a  limitless  number  of  possible  in- 
ferences of  the  form:  "Whatever  is  in  any  relation 
R  to  a  horse  is  in  that  same  relation  R  to  an  ani- 
mal."    Now  you  may  indeed  at  first,  as  I  just  said, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  97 

imagine  such  reasonings  to  be  comparatively  trivial. 
Whether  they  prove  to  be  so,  however,  depends 
wholly  upon  the  objects  in  question,  upon  our  own 
interests  in  these  objects,  and  upon  circumstances. 
They  might  be  vastly  important.  From  the  asser- 
tion, "Mr.  Taft  is  President  of  the  United  States," 
there  follows,  by  this  sort  of  reasoning,  the  assertion, 
"Whoever  is  a  personal  friend  of  INIr.  Taft  is  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  the  President  of  the  United  States." 
And  such  a  conclusion  some  people  might  be  very 
glad  to  have  you  draw.  So,  too,  whoever  is  a  mem- 
ber of  Mr.  Taft's  family,  or  household,  or  club,  or  of 
the  university  whose  degrees  he  holds,  or  whoever 
is  a  fellow-townsman,  or  fellow-countryman,  or  par- 
tisan, or  opponent,  or  enemy  of  Mr.  Taft,  whoever 
agrees  with  what  he  says  in  his  speeches,  whoever 
plays  golf  with  him,  or  whoever  hopes  or  fears  for 
his  re-election,  stands  in  just  that  relation,  what- 
ever it  may  be,  to  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
And  how  important  such  rational  inferences  might 
appear  for  the  comprehension  of  somebody's  actual 
situation  and  prospects  and  acts  depends  upon  the 
persons  and  the  interests  that  may  be  in  question. 
To  some  people  just  such  inferences,  at  one  moment 
or  another,  will  not  seem  trivial,  will  be  worth  mak- 
ing, and  will  be  anything  but  feats  of  barren  intellec- 
tualism.  That  they  are  easy  inferences  to  make  is 
beside  the  mark.  I  have  no  time  to  ask  you  here 
to  study  with  me  the  harder  inferences  upon  topics 
that  do  not  concern  our  main  purpose.    ^Miat  I 


98  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

need,  however,  is  to  illustrate  to  you  that  such 
reasoning  processes  go  beyond  mere  analysis,  and 
do  involve  a  rational  and  articulate  intuition  of  a 
novel  aspect  of  experience.  For  I  defy  you  to  find 
by  any  mere  analysis  of  the  assertion,  "Mr.  Taft  is 
President,"  the  innumerable  assertions  about  friends, 
about  family,  about  speeches,  and  policies,  and  so 
on,  which  as  a  fact  rationally  follow,  in  the  indicated 
wav,  from  that  first  assertion.  You  find  these  new 
results  by  taking  a  broader  view  of  the  unity  of  ex- 
perience. What,  then,  I  need  to  have  you  see  is 
that  the  reason  which,  even  in  its  lightest  deeds, 
can  accomplish  such  syntheses,  and  which  can  lead 
to  such  ordered  intuitions,  and  can  be  the  endless 
source  of  such  novelties,  is  not  merely  the  reason  of 
whose  powers  as  a  source  of  insight  James  gives  so 
discouraging  a  picture. 

Having  thus  barely  illustrated  the  thesis  that 
reason  can  be  both  productive  of  new  insight  and 
constructively  synthetic  in  its  grasp  of  wider  ranges 
of  experience  than  we  could  observe  without  it,  let 
me  add  that,  in  the  exact  sciences,  and  in  particular 
in  mathematics,  the  reasoning  process,  using  just 
such  forms  of  synthesis  as  I  have  now  illustrated,  is 
constantly  leading  investigators  to  the  most  varied 
and  novel  discoveries.  These  discoveries  are  not  due 
to  mere  analysis.  They  are  reports  of  facts  and  the 
results  of  synthetic  construction.  As  Mr.  Charles 
Peirce  loves  to  point  out,  the  new  discoveries  made 
in  mathematics,  and  by  purely  rational  processes, 


Sources  or  Religious  Insight  99 

are  so  numerous  that  for  each  year  a  volume  of 
many  hundreds  of  closely  printed  pages  is  needed  to 
give,  with  strictly  technical  brevity,  even  the  barest 
outline  of  the  contents  of  the  papers  containing  the 
novel  results  of  that  one  year's  researches.  In  their 
union  with  other  sciences,  the  mathematical  re- 
searches constantly  lead  to  still  vaster  ranges  of 
novel  discovery.  Reason,  then,  is  not  merely  bar- 
ren, is  not  mainly  concerned  with  unproductive  an- 
alysis, but  does  enrich  our  survey  of  experience,  of 
its  unity  and  of  its  meaning. 

Perhaps  some  of  you  may  still  object  that,  if  I 
define  reason  in  the  terms  suggested  by  these  in- 
stances, there  seems  to  be  danger  of  making  the 
word  "reason"  mean  simply  the  same  as  the  word 
"insight."  For  insight,  as  I  defined  it  in  my  open- 
ing lecture,  means  a  coherent  view  of  many  facts  in 
some  sort  of  unity.  And  in  this  case,  as  you  may 
now  say,  why  use  two  words  at  all?  I  reply  that,  in 
fact,  all  true  insight  is,  to  my  mind,  rational  insight, 
upon  one  or  another  level  of  the  development  of  our 
power  to  become  rational  beings.  But  you  will  re- 
member that  insight,  as  I  defined  it,  also  means 
knowledge  which  is  intimate  and  manifold,  as  well 
as  knowledge  which  views  facts  and  relations  in  their 
unity.  The  words  intuition  and  experience  are  often 
used  to  lay  stress  upon  that  aspect  of  our  insight 
which  either  makes  it  intimate  or  else  brings  it  into 
touch  with  many  and  various  facts.  And  such  usage 
is  convenient.    The  word  reason,  as  I  have  just  ex- 


100  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

emplified  its  more  synthetic  meaning,  calls  our  at- 
tention precisely  to  that  aspect  of  our  better  insight 
which  is  involved  in  our  power  to  grasp  many  facts 
in  their  unity,  to  see  the  coherence,  the  inter-rela- 
tionship, the  totality  of  a  set  of  experiences.  Now 
when  insight  reaches  higher  levels,  these  various 
aspects  of  our  knowledge  are  never  sundered.  But 
as  we  grow  toward  higher  insight,  we  know  in  part 
and  prophesy  in  part  and  are  child-like  in  so  far  as 
that  which  is  perfect  has  not  yet  come. 

In  these,  our  imperfect  stages  of  growth,  some- 
times our  knowledge  possesses  intimacy,  but  still  has 
to  remain  content,  for  the  moment,  with  a  more  in- 
articulate grasp  of  deeper  meanings.  In  such  cases 
James's  sort  of  intuition,  or  what  is  often  called 
blind  faith,  is  mainly  in  question.  And  this  is  in- 
deed a  stage  on  the  way  to  insight.  We  feel  unities 
but  do  not  see  them.  Sometimes,  however,  as  in 
much  of  our  ordinary  experience,  the  state  of  our 
minds  is  different;  our  knowledge  revels  in,  or  else 
contends  with,  the  endless  variety  and  multiplicity 
of  the  facts  of  life,  and  lacks  a  grasp  of  their  unity. 
In  that  case  our  insight  is  often  called  "merely 
empirical."  We  have  experience;  and  so  far  our 
knowledge  prospers.  But  we  neither  feel  vaguely 
nor  see  clearly  the  total  sense  of  things.  And  in 
such  cases  our  sight  is  too  busy  to  give  us  time  for 
higher  insight.  As  the  Germans  say,  we  do  not  see 
the  wood  because  of  the  trees. 

In  a  third  stage  of  partial  insight  we  may  stand 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  101 

where,  for  instance,  the  masters  of  the  exact  sciences 
stand.  We  then  grasp,  with  clearness,  larger  uni- 
ties of  controllable  experience.  We  create  objects, 
as  the  mathematicians  create,  in  an  ideal  world  of 
our  own  contemplation;  and  we  then  come  to  see 
that  these  ideal  creations  of  ours  do,  indeed,  reveal 
the  eternal  truth  regarding  a  world  of  seemingly  im- 
personal or  superpersonal  reality.  We  learn  of  this 
reality  through  the  coherent  synthesis  of  our  ideal 
constructions.  Our  intuition  is  in  this  case  at  once 
empirical,  articulate,  and  such  as  to  survey  the 
broad  landscape  of  the  genuine  relations  of  things. 
But  alas!  in  most  such  cases  our  objects,  although 
they  are  indeed  presented  to  our  rational  intuition, 
are  often  abstract  enough  in  their  seeming.  They 
are  objects  such  as  numbers,  and  series,  and  ordered 
arrays  of  highly  ideal  entities.  In  such  cases  the 
reason  does  its  typical  work;  but  often  the  objects 
of  our  insight  fail  to  meet  the  more  intense  needs  of 
life. 

Thus,  then,  inarticulate  intuitions,  ordinary  or 
sometimes  more  scientific  observations  of  the  details 
of  life,  and  mathematical  reasonings  concerning  the 
unity  and  the  connections  of  highly  ideal  objects 
such  as  numbers,  come  to  stand  in  our  experience  as 
more  or  less  sharply  sundered  grades  of  imperfect 
insight.  Thus  we  naturally  come  to  view  the  typ- 
ical achievements  of  our  reason  as  a  thing  apart, 
and  the  rational  or  exact  sciences  as  remote  both 
from  the  intuitive  faith  of  the  little  ones  and  from 


102  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  wealthy  experience  of  the  men  of  common-sense 
and  of  the  men  of  natural  science.  As  a  fact,  all 
these  stages  of  insight  are  hints  of  what  the  Supreme 
Court  meant  when  it  appealed  to  the  "  rule  of  rea- 
son." True  insight,  if  fulfilled,  would  be  empiri- 
cal, for  it  would  face  facts;  intuitive,  for  it  would 
survey  them  and  grasp  them,  and  be  intimate  with 
them;  rational,  for  it  would  view  them  in  their  unity. 

IV 

Our  lengthy  effort  to  define  the  work  and.  the  place 
of  the  reason  has  brought  us  to  the  threshold  of  an 
appreciation  of  its  relation  to  the  religious  insight 
which  we  are  seeking. 

In  looking  for  salvation,  we  discover  that  our  task 
is  defined  for  us  by  those  aspects  of  individual  and 
social  experience  upon  which  our  two  previous  lec- 
tures have  dwelt.  We  have  learned  from  the  study 
of  these  two  sorts  of  experience  that,  whatever  else 
we  need  for  our  salvation,  one  of  our  needs  is  to 
come  into  touch  with  a  life  that  in  its  unity,  in  its 
meaning,  in  its  perfection,  is  vastly  superior  to  our 
present  human  type  of  life.  And  so  the  question 
has  presented  itself:  Have  we  any  evidence  that  such 
a  superhuman  type  of  life  is  a  real  fact  in  the  world? 
The  mystics,  and  many  of  the  faithful,  answer  this 
question  by  saying :  "  Yes.  We  have  such  evidence. 
It  is  the  assurance  that  we  get  through  intuition, 
through  feeling,  through  the  light  revealed  to  us 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  103 

in  certain  moments  when  thought  ceases,  and  the 
proud  intellect  is  dumb,  and  when  the  divine  speaks 
quite  directly  to  the  passive  and  humbled  soul." 
Now  when  we  calmly  consider  the  evidence  of  such 
moments  of  inarticulate  conviction,  they  strongly 
impress  upon  us  what  we  have  called  the  religious 
paradox.  Faith,  and  the  passive  and  mysterious 
intuitions  of  the  devout,  seem  to  depend  on  first  ad- 
mitting that  we  are  naturally  blind  and  helpless  and 
ignorant,  and  worthless  to  know,  of  ourselves,  any 
saving  truth;  and  upon  nevertheless  insisting  that 
we  are  quite  capable  of  one  very  lofty  type  of  knowl- 
edge— that  we  are  capable,  namely,  of  knowing 
God's  voice  when  we  hear  it,  of  distinguishing  a 
di\dne  revelation  from  all  other  reports,  of  being 
sure,  despite  all  our  worthless  ignorance,  that  the 
divine  higher  life  which  seems  to  speak  to  us  in  our 
moments  of  intuition  is  what  it  declares  itself  to  be. 
If,  then,  there  is  a  pride  of  intellect,  does  there  not 
seem  to  be  an  equal  pride  of  faith,  an  equal  preten- 
tiousness involved  in  undertaking  to  judge  that  cer- 
tain of  our  least  articulate  intuitions  are  infallible? 
Surely  here  is  a  genuine  problem,  and  it  is  a  prob- 
lem for  the  reason.  We  know  that  men  differ  in 
faith.  We  know  that  one  man's  intuition  regarding 
the  way  of  salvation  may  seem  to  another  man  to 
be  a  mere  delusion,  a  deceitful  dream.  We  know, 
from  the  reports  of  religious  experience,  that  at  times 
even  the  saints  of  greatest  renown  have  doubted 
whether  some  of  their  most  persuasive  visions  of  the 


104  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

divine  were  not,  after  all,  due  to  the  cunning  deceit 
of  an  enemy  of  souls  whom  they  more  or  less  super- 
stitiously  feared.  We  know  that  to  common-sense, 
despite  its  interest  in  salvation,  the  reports  of  the 
mystics  and  of  the  faithful  have  often  appeared  to 
be  but  the  tale  of  private  and  vain  imaginings.  It 
is  fair  to  ask  what  are  the  criteria  whereby  the  true 
spiritual  gifts,  the  genuine  revelations,  are  to  be 
distinguished.  And  this,  I  insist,  is  a  question  for 
the  reason,  for  that  aspect  of  our  nature  which  has 
to  do  with  forming  estimates  of  wholes  rather  than 
of  fragments — estimates  of  life  in  its  entirety  rather 
than  of  this  or  that  feeling  or  moment  of  ecstasy  in 
its  isolation. 

If,  hereupon,  without  for  the  moment  attempting 
to  discuss  how  others,  as,  for  instance,  James  himself, 
deal  with  the  problem  of  the  reasonable  estimate  of 
the  value  of  our  religious  intuitions,  I  sketch  for  you 
my  own  opinion  as  to  how  reason  does  throw  light 
upon  the  religious  paradox,  I  must  again  emphasise 
a  matter  that  I  mentioned  in  my  opening  lecture  and 
that  is  much  neglected.  Religious  faith  does,  indeed, 
involve  a  seemingly  paradoxical  attempt  to  transcend 
the  admitted  ignorance  of  the  needy  human  being, 
to  admit  that  of  himself  this  being  knows  almost 
nothing  about  the  way  of  salvation,  and  neverthe- 
less to  insist  that  he  is  able  to  recognise  his  Deliverer's 
voice  as  the  voice  of  a  real  master  of  life  when  he 
hears  that  voice,  or — apart  from  metaphor — that  he 
is  able  to  be  sure  what  revelation  of  a  divine  life,  not 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  105 

his  own,  is  the  true  one  when  he  happens  to  get  it. 
But  reHgion  is  not  alone  in  this  paradoxical  pride  of 
humility.  Science  and  common-sense  alike  involve 
a  similar  admission  of  the  depths  of  our  human  falli- 
bility and  ignorance,  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  anal- 
ogous assurance  that,  despite  this  our  fragmentari- 
ness  of  experience,  despite  our  Hability  to  be  deceived, 
we  nevertheless  can  recognise  truth  when  experi- 
ence once  has  not  wholly  verified  it,  but  has  suffi- 
ciently helped  us  to  get  it.  For,  as  individuals,  we 
are  constantly  confident  beyond  what  our  present 
experience,  taken  by  itself,  clearly  reveals  to  us. 
We,  for  instance,  trust  our  individual  memory  in 
the  single  case,  while  admitting  its  pervasive  falli- 
bility in  general.  We  persistently  view  ourselves  as. 
in  reasonably  close  touch  with  the  general  and  com-' 
mon  results  of  human  experience,  even  at  the  mo- 
ment when  we  have  to  admit  how  little  we  know 
about  the  mind  or  the  experience  of  any  one  fellow- 
man,  even  our  nearest  friend.  We  say  that  some  of 
our  opinions,  for  instance,  are  warranted  by  the 
common-sense  of  mankind.  That  is,  w^e  pretend 
once  for  all  to  know  a  good  deal  about  what  the 
common  experience  of  mankind  is.  And  yet,  if  we 
look  closer,  we  see  that  we  do  not  directly  see  or 
experience  the  genuine  inner  life  of  any  one  of  man- 
kind except  the  private  self  which  each  one  of  us 
regards  as  his  own,  while,  if  we  still  further  consider 
the  matter,  we  can  readily  observe  how  little  each 
one  of  us  really  knows  even  about  himself.     \Mien 


106  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

we  appeal  then  to  what  we  call  common-sense,  we 
pretend  to  know  what  it  is  that,  as  we  say,  the  mind 
of  mankind  finds  to  be  true.  But  if  we  are  asked 
to  estimate  the  real  state  of  mind  of  any  individual 
man,  how  mysterious  that  state  is!  In  brief,  the 
paradox  of  feeling  confidence  in  our  own  judgment, 
even  while  regarding  all  human  opinion  as  pro- 
foundly fallible,  is  not  merely  a  religious  paradox, 
but  also  pervades  our  whole  social  and  personal  and 
even  our  scientific  types  of  opinion.  Not  to  have 
what  is  called  a  reasonable  confidence  in  our  own 
individual  opinions  is  the  mark  of  a  weakling.  But 
usually,  if  our  personal  opinions  relate  to  important 
matters,  they  bring  us  into  more  or  less  serious  con- 
flict with  at  least  some  of  the  opinions  of  other  men. 
Conflict  is  one  mark  that  your  opinions  are  worth 
having.  When  the  conflict  arises,  we  are  usually 
led  to  consider  how  fallible  other  men  are.  They 
are  fallible,  we  say,  because  they  are  human.  How 
little  any  poor  man  knows!  Yes,  but  if  this  prin- 
ciple holds  true,  how  doubtful  are  my  own  opinions! 
Yet  if  I  fill  my  mind  with  that  reflection,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  other  reasonable  considerations,  I  con- 
demn myself  not  to  mere  fallibility,  but  to  certain 
failure. 

The  paradox  is  universal.  It  pervades  all  forms 
and  activities  of  human  inquiry.  That  is  the  first 
synthetic  observation  of  the  reason,  when  it  surveys 
the  field  of  human  opinion.  Everywhere  we  live 
by  undertaking  to  transcend  in  opinion  what  the 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  107 

evidence  before  us,  at  any  one  moment,  directly  and 
infallibly  warrants.  But  is  it  rational  to  do  this? 
And  if  so,  why  is  it  rational? 

The  answer  is  that  while  there  Is  much  irrational 
presumption  and  overconfidence  in  our  human  world, 
there  is  also  a  perfectly  rational  principle  which 
warrants  certain  forms  and  methods  of  thus  tran- 
scending in  our  opinions  the  immediately  presented 
evidence  of  the  moment  when  we  judge.  This 
principle  is  as  universal  as  it  is  generally  neg- 
lected. Rightly  understood,  it  simply  transforms  for 
you  your  whole  view  of  the  real  universe  in  which 
you  live. 

An  opinion  of  yours  may  be  true  or  false.  But 
when  you  form  an  opinion,  what  are  you  trying  to 
do?  You  are  trying  to  anticipate,  in  some  fashion, 
what  a  wider  view,  a  larger  experience  of  your  pres- 
ent situation,  a  fuller  insight  into  your  present  ideas, 
and  Into  what  they  mean,  would  show  you.  If  you 
now  had  that  wider  view  and  larger  experience. 
Such  an  effort  to  anticipate  what  the  wider  view 
would  even  now  show.  If  you  were  possessed  of  that 
view.  Involves  both  what  are  usually  called  theoret- 
ical interests  and  what  pragmatists,  such  as  James 
himself,  have  often  characterised  as  practical  inter- 
ests. One  can  express  the  matter  by  saying,  that 
you  are  trying,  through  your  opinions,  to  predict 
what  a  larger  insight,  If  It  were  present  to  you, 
would  show  or  would  find,  that  Is,  would  experience. 
You  can  also  say  that  you  are  trying  to  define  what 


108  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

a  fuller  apprehension  and  a  fairer  estimate  of  your 
present  purposes,  and  intentions,  and  interests,  and 
deeds,  and  of  their  outcome,  and  of  their  place 
in  life,  would  bring  before  your  vision.  In  brief 
(whether  you  lay  more  stress  upon  deeds  and  their 
outcome,  or  upon  experiences  and  their  contents), 
any  expression  of  opinion,  made  at  any  time,  is  an 
appeal  of  the  self  of  the  moment  to  the  verdict,  to 
the  estimate,  to  the  experience  of  a  larger  and  better 
informed  insight,  in  the  light  of  which  the  self  of  the 
moment  proposes  to  be  judged.  The  special  criteria 
by  which  your  momentary  opinion  is  tested,  at  the 
time  when  you  form  that  opinion,  vary  endlessly 
with  your  mood  and  your  training  and  your  feelings, 
and  with  the  topics  and  tasks  in  which  you  happen 
to  be  interested.  But  the  universal  form  in  which 
any  opinion  comes  to  your  consciousness,  and  gets 
its  definition  for  your  own  mind,  is  this  form  of  an 
appeal  to  an  insight  that  is  superior  in  grasp,  in 
unity,  in  coherence,  in  reasonableness  to  your  mo- 
mentary insight. 

Now  you  can  indeed  say:  "When  I  form  and  ex- 
press an  opinion,  I  appeal  from  my  present  experi- 
ences to  some  wider  insight  that  I  view  as  if  it  were 
possible.  My  opinion  asserts  that  if  I  were  per- 
mitted to  see  what  I  just  now  do  not  directly  ex- 
perience, I  should  find  the  facts  to  be  so  and  so." 
But  no  such  account  of  the  matter  is  quite  complete. 
Everything  that  you  regard  as  possible  has  to  be 
conceived  as  somehow  based  upon  what  you  regard 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  109 

as  actual.  And  so,  in  fact,  your  opinions  are  always 
appeals  to  some  form  of  wider  or  larger  or  deeper  or 
richer  insight  that,  in  the  act  of  appealing  to  it,  you 
regard  as  a  present  or  as  a  past  or  as  a  future  reality 
— in  brief,  as  a  live  and  perfectly  concrete  insight  to 
whose  verdict  you  appeal.  Philosophers  often  ex- 
press this  by  saying  that  all  opinions  are  nothing 
but  efforts  to  formulate  the  real  contents  of  experi-  i 
ence.     This  view  I  accept. 

So  then,  as  I  insist,  whatever  your  opinions,  your 
expression  of  them  is  an  appeal  to  some  wider  in- 
sight that  you  regard  as  real,  and  that  you  view  as 
a  live  insight  which  comprehends  your  ideas,  and 
which  sees  how  they  are  related  to  genuine  experi- 
ence. This,  I  aflSrm,  is  the  universal  form  which  all 
opinion  takes.  A  true  opinion  is  true,  because  in 
fact  it  expresses  w^hat  the  wuder  insight  confirms. 
A  false  opinion  is  false,  because  it  is  refuted  by  the 
light  of  this  same  wider  view.  Apart  from  such  a 
confirmation  or  refutation  in  the  light  of  such  a 
larger  view,  the  very  concepts  of  truth  and  error,  as 
applied  to  opinions  w^hich  are  not  wholly  confirmed 
or  set  aside  by  the  instantaneous  evidence  of  the 
moment  when  the  opinions  are  formed  or  uttered, 
have  no  meaning.  True  is  the  judgment  that  is 
confirmed  by  the  larger  view  to  which  it  appeals. 
False  is  the  assertion  that  is  not  thus  confirmed. 
Upon  such  a  conception  the  very  ideas  of  truth  and 
error  depend.  Without  such  a  conception  tndh  and 
error  have  no  sense.     If  such  a  conception  is  not  it- 


1 10  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

self  a  true  view  of  our  situation,  that  is,  if  there  is 
no  wider  insight,  our  opinions  have  neither  truth  nor 
error,  and  are  all  of  them  alike  merely  meaningless. 
When  you  are  ignorant,  you  are  ignorant  of  what 
the  wider  view  makes  clear  to  its  own  insight.  If 
you  blunder  or  are  deluded,  your  blunder  is  due 
to  a  defective  apprehension  which  the  wider  view 
confirms.  And  thus,  whether  you  are  ignorant  or 
blundering,  wise  or  foolish,  whether  the  truth  or  the 
falsity  of  your  present  opinion  is  supposed  to  be 
actual,  one  actuality  is  equally  and  rationally  pre- 
supposed, as  the  actuality  to  which  all  your  opinions 
refer,  and  in  the  light  of  which  they  possess  sense. 
This  is  the  actuality  of  some  ivider  insight  with  refer- 
ence to  which  your  own  opinion  gets  its  truth  or  its 
falsity. 

To  this  wider  insight,  to  this  always  presupposed 
vision  of  experience  as  it  is,  of  the  facts  as  they  are, 
you  are  always  appealing.  Your  every  act  of  asser- 
tion displays  the  genuineness  of  the  appeal  and  ex- 
emplifies the  absolute  rational  necessity  of  asserting 
that  the  appeal  is  made  to  an  insight  that  is  itself 
real. 

Frequentlj^  you  do,  indeed,  call  this  insight  merely 
the  common-sense  of  mankind.  But,  strange  to  say, 
this  common-sense  of  mankind  is  always  and  in- 
evitably conceived  by  you  in  terms  that  distinguish 
it  from  the  fleeting  momentary  views  of  any  or  of 
all  merely  individual  men.  Men — if  I  may  judge 
them  by  my  own  case,  and  by  what  I  hear  other 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  111 

men  confess — men,  when  taken  merely  as  indi- 
viduals, always  live  from  moment  to  moment  in  a 
flickering  way,  normally  confident,  indeed,  but 
clearly  seeing  at  any  one  instant  verj^  little  at  a 
time.  They  are  narrow  in  the  span  of  the  more 
direct  insight.  They  grasp  data  bit  by  bit,  and 
comprehend,  in  their  instantaneous  flashes  of  in- 
sight, only  little  scraps  and  tiny  bundles  of  ideas. 
I  who  now  speak  to  you  cannot  hold  clearly  and 
momentarily  before  my  mind  at  once  even  all  of 
the  meaning  that  I  try  to  express  in  two  or  three  of 
my  successive  sentences.  I  Hve  looking  before  and 
after,  and  pining  for  what  is  not,  and  grasping  after 
unity;  and  I  find  each  moment  crumbling  as  it  flies; 
and  each  thought  and  each  sentence  of  my  dis- 
course drops  into  momentary  forgetfulness  so  soon 
as  I  have  carefully  built  up  its  passing  structure. 
In  our  life  all  thus  flows.  We  fly  from  one  flash  of 
insight  to  another. 

But  nevertheless  our  opinions,  so  we  say,  reflect 
sometimes  the  common-sense  of  mankind.  They 
conform  to  the  verdict  of  humanity.  But  who 
amongst  us  ever  goes  beyond  thus  confidently  hold- 
ing that  he  reflects  the  common-sense  of  mankind? 
Who  amongst  us  personally  and  individually  ex- 
periences, at  any  moment,  the  confirmation  said  to 
be  given  by  the  verdict  of  humanity?  The  verdict 
of  humanity?  WTiat  man  ever  finds  immediately 
presented  to  his  own  personal  insight  that  totality 
of  data  upon  which  this  verdict  is  said  to  depend? 


112  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

The  common-sense  of  mankind?  What  mortal  man 
is  there  who  ever  finds  incorporated  in  his  flickering, 
fleeting,  crumbhng,  narrow  moments  of  personal  ex- 
perience the  calm  and  secure  insight  which  this 
common-sense  of  mankind,  or  of  enlightened  man- 
kind, is  said  to  possess? 

No,  the  common-sense  of  mankind  is,  for  us  all,  a 
sort  of  super-individual  insight,  to  which  we  appeal 
without  ourselves  fully  possessing  it.  This  "com- 
mon "-sense  of  mankind  is  just  the  sense  which  no 
man  of  u^  all  ever  individually  possesses.  For  us  all 
it  is,  indeed,  something  superhuman.  We  spend  part 
of  our  busy  little  lives  in  somewhat  pretentiously 
undertaking  to  report  its  dicta.  But  it  is  simply  one 
of  the  countless  forms  in  which  we  conceive  the 
wider  insight  to  be  incorporated.  The  true  rational 
warrant  for  this  confidence  of  ours  lies  in  the  fact  that 
whatever  else  is  real,  some  form  of  such  a  wider  insight, 
some  essentially  super-individual  and  superhuman  in- 
sight is  real.  For  unless  it  is  real  our  opinions,  in- 
cluding any  opinion  that  we  may  have  that  doubts 
or  questions  or  denies  its  reality,  are  all  equally 
meaningless.  Thus  even  when  we  appeal  to  com- 
mon-sense we  really  appeal  to  a  genuine  but  super- 
human insight. 

Let  us  not  here  spend  time,  however,  upon  analys- 
ing this  or  that  special  form  in  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed, for  one  special  purpose  or  another,  to  conceive 
the  wider  insight.  What  is  clear  is  that  we  con- 
stantly, and  in  every  opinion,  in  every  confession  of 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  1 13 

ignorance  appeal  to  such  an  insight.  That  such  an 
insight  is  real,  must  be  presupposed  even  in  order  to 
assert  that  our  present  opinions  are  errors.  What 
interests  us  most  at  this  point  is,  however,  this,  that 
whatever  else  the  whole  real  universe  is,  the  real 
universe  exists  only  in  case  it  is  the  object,  and  the 
very  being,  of  such  an  insight,  of  such  an  inclusive 
experience,  of  such  a  view  of  what  is.  For,  when 
you  hold  any  opinions  whatever  about  the  real 
world,  or  about  any  of  its  contents,  characters,  or 
values,  your  opinions  are  either  true  or  false,  and 
are  true  or  false  by  virtue  of  their  actual  conformity 
to  the  live  insight  which  experiences  what  makes 
them  true  or  false,  and  which  therefore  ipso  facto 
experiences  what  the  real  world  is.  If  there  is  no 
such  world-possessing  insight,  then,  once  more,  your 
opinions  about  the  world  are  neither  true  nor  false. 
Or,  otherwise  stated,  if  there  is  no  such  inclusive 
insight  there  is  no  world.  To  the  real  world,  then, 
this  insight  which  comprehends  the  world,  and  which 
knows  whatever  is  true  to  be  true,  and  whatever  is 
false  about  the  world  to  be  false — to  the  real  world 
this  insight,  I  say,  belongs.  And  the  whole  w^orld 
belongs  to  it  and  is  its  object  and  essence.  What- 
ever is  real  is  real  for  that  insight,  and  is  in  its  ex- 
perience, and  exists  as  its  possession,  and  as  its  well- 
known  and  well-comprehended  content,  and  as  its 
image  and  expression  and  meaning. 

All  this  I  say,  as  you  may  note,  not  because  I 
hold  in  high  esteem  any  of  our  private  human  opin- 


114  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ions,  but  only  because,  except  in  the  light  of  such  an 
all-seeing  comprehension  of  facts  as  they  are,  our  indi- 
vidual opinions  about  the  world  cannot  even  be  false. 
For  opinion,  in  all  its  fleeting  blindness  and  in  its 
human  chaos  of  caprices,  is  ceaselessly  an  appeal  to 
the  judge,  to  the  seer,  to  the  standard  experience, 
to  the  knower  of  facts  as  they  are,  to  the  wider  view, 
to  the  decisive  insight.  And  opinions  about  reaHty 
in  its  wholeness,  about  the  world,  about  the  all,  are 
appeals  to  the  all-judging  insight,  to  the  all-seeing 
view,  to  the  knowledge  and  experience  that  grasps 
the  totality  of  facts,  to  the  widest  outlook,  to  the 
deepest  insight,  to  the  absolute  rational  decision. 
If  this  be  so,  then  an  opinion  to  the  effect  that  there 
exists  no  such  widest  and  deepest  insight,  and  no 
such  final  view,  is  itself  just  such  an  appeal  to  the 
final  insight,  simply  because  it  is  an  opinion  about 
reality.  To  assert  then  that  there  is  no  largest  view, 
no  final  insight,  no  experience  that  is  absolute,  is  to 
assert  that  the  largest  view  observes  that  there  is 
no  largest  view,  that  the  final  insight  sees  that  there 
is  no  such  insight,  that  the  ultimate  experience  is 
aware  that  there  is  no  ultimate  experience.  And 
such  an  assertion  is  indeed  a  self-contradiction. 

This,  I  assert,  is  the  only  rational  way  of  stating 
the  nature  of  opinion,  of  truth  or  error,  and  conse- 
quently of  reality.  This  is  the  synthesis  which 
reason  inevitably  accomplishes  whenever  it  rightly 
views  the  nature  and  the  implications  of  even  our 
most  flickering  and  erroneous  and  uncertain  opin- 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  115 

ions.  We  can  err  about  what  you  will.  But  if  we 
err,  we  simply  come  short  of  the  insight  to  which 
we  are  aiming  to  conform,  and  in  the  light  of  which 
our  ideas  get  absolutely  all  of  their  meaning.  In 
every  error,  in  every  blunder,  in  all  our  darkness,  in 
all  our  ignorance,  we  are  still  in  touch  with  the  eternal 
insight.  We  are  always  seeking  to  know  even  as  we 
are  known. 

I  have  sought  in  this  sketch  to  vindicate  the  gen- 
eral rights  of  rational  insight  as  against  mere  mo- 
mentary or  fragmentary  intuition.  I  have  also 
tried  to  show  you  what  synthesis  of  reason  gives  us 
a  genuinely  religious  insight. 

"My  first  penitent,"  said  the  priest  of  our  story, 
"was  a  murderer."  "And  I,"  said  the  nobleman, 
"was  this  priest's  first  penitent." 

"I  am  ignorant  of  the  vast  and  mysterious  real 
world" — thus  says  our  sense  of  human  fallibility 
and  weakness  when  we  are  first  awakened  to  our 
need  of  rational  guidance.  The  saying  is  true. 
The  mystery  is  appalling.  "  I  am  ignorant  of  the  real 
world."  Yes;  but  reason,  reflecting  upon  the  nature 
and  the  essential  meaning  of  opinion,  of  truth,  of 
error,  and  of  ignorance,  points  out  to  us  this  thesis: 
"That  of  which  I  am  ignorant  is  that  about  which 
I  can  err.  But  error  is  failure  to  conform  my  mo- 
mentary opinion  to  the  very  insight  which  I  mean 
and  to  which  I  am  all  the  while  appealing.  Error 
is  failure  to  conform  to  the  inclusive  insight  which 


116  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

overarches  my  errors  with  the  heaven  of  its  rational 
clearness.  Error  is  failure  to  grasp  the  very  light 
which  shines  in  my  darkness,  even  while  my  dark- 
ness comprehends  it  not.  That  of  which  I  am  ig- 
norant is  then  essentially  the  object  of  a  super- 
human and  divine  insight." 

"I  am  ignorant  of  the  world.  To  be  ignorant  is 
to  fail  to  grasp  the  object  of  the  all-inclusive  and 
divine  insight."  That  is  the  expression  of  our  situ- 
ation. Reason  easily  makes  the  fitting  synthesis 
when  it  considers  the  priest  and  the  nobleman.  I 
ask  you  to  make  the  analogous  synthesis  regarding 
the  world  and  the  divine  insight.  This  synthesis 
here  takes  form  in  concluding  that  the  world  is  the 
object  of  an  all-inclusive  and  divine  insight,  which 
is  thus  the  supreme  reality. 

I  have  but  sketched  for  you  the  contribution  of 
reason  to  our  quest.  This  contribution  will  seem 
to  many  of  you  too  abstract  and  too  contemplative 
to  meet  vital  religious  needs.  In  fact,  what  I  have 
said  will  mean  little  to  you  unless  you  come  to  see 
how  it  can  be  translated  into  an  adequate  expression 
in  our  active  life.  To  this  task  of  such  a  further 
interpretation  of  the  mission  of  the  reason  as  a 
guide  of  life  my  next  lecture  shall  be  devoted. 


IV 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  WILL 


IV 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  WILL 

I  COULD  not  discuss,  in  my  last  lecture,  the  oflSce 
of  the  reason  as  a  source  of  rehgious  insight  without 
sketching  for  you  what  insight  I  personally  regard 
as  the  most  important  result  of  the  right  use  of 
reason.  This  sketch  was  of  course,  in  my  own  mind, 
a  part  of  an  extended  body  of  philosophical  doctrine. 
It  does  not  lie  within  the  intent  of  these  lectures  to 
present  a  system  of  philosophy.  I  ought,  never- 
theless, to  begin  this  lecture  by  saying  a  few  words 
about  the  relation  of  my  last  discussion  to  certain 
religious  and  philosophical  opinions  of  which  you 
have  all  heard,  and  by  indicating  why  it  has  seemed 
to  me  worth  while  to  call  your  attention  to  the  mere 
hint  of  a  philosophy  with  which  the  last  discussion 
closed.  Having  thus  indicated  the  setting  in  which 
I  want  you  to  see  the  brief  exposition  of  a  general 
theory  which  I  find  to  be  indispensable  for  our  main 
purpose,  I  shall  devote  the  rest  of  this  lecture  to  the 
task  of  connecting  the  insight  which  reason  gives  to 
us  with  the  main  purpose  of  our  inquiry,  namely, 
with  the  undertaking  to  know  the  nature  and  the 
way  of  salvation.     Reason  is  of  importance  in  so 

119 


120  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

far  as  what  it  shows  us  enables  us  to  direct  our  will 
and  to  come  into  closer  touch  with  truths  which  are 
not  only  theoretical,  but  also  practical. 

We  shall  therefore  discuss  at  some  length  the  re- 
lation of  our  rational  knowledge  to  our  active  life, 
and  the  relation  of  our  rational  will  to  the  world  in 
which  we  are  to  work  out  our  salvation  if  we  can. 


The  nature  and  the  teachings  of  the  human  reason 
have  interested  philosophers  from  very  nearly  the 
beginning  of  philosophical  inquiry.  What  I  told 
you  about  the  subject  in  our  former  discussion  re- 
ports a  decidedly  modern  version  of  a  very  old 
opinion — an  opinion  which  has  been  repeatedly  ex- 
amined, revised,  assailed,  and  defended.  Let  me 
say  a  word  as  to  its  history. 

Plato  held  that,  through  our  reason,  we  are  able 
to  rise  beyond  the  world  of  sense  and  to  hold  com- 
munion with  a  realm  of  ideally  significant  and 
eternal  being.  What  Plato  really  meant  by  his 
ideal  realm,  and  in  what  sense  the  world  of  what 
Plato  called  the  eternal  realities,  the  forms  or  ideas, 
could  be,  as  Plato  held  it  to  be,  a  divine  world,  in 
its  worth  and  dignity,  later  philosophy  repeatedly 
attempted  to  grasp. 

The  results  of  such  philosophical  thinking  have 
deeply  affected  the  history  of  religion  and  still  in- 
fluence the  religious  interest  of  all  of  you.     One  ver- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  121 

sion  of  that  philosophical  tradition  whose  origin  is 
in  the  thought  of  Plato — a  late  version,  and  also  one 
greatly  transformed  by  motives  of  which  Plato  had 
known  in  his  day  nothing,  is  the  familiar  version  to 
which,  in  the  last  lecture,  I  in  passing  alluded — the 
prologue  to  our  Fourth  Gospel.  You  will  all  agree 
that  this  prologue  attempts  to  state  a  religious  in- 
sight. The  relation  of  this  New  Testament  view  of 
the  world  of  the  reason  to  the  doctrine  which  still 
later  came  to  be  formulated  by  the  theologians  of 
the  Christian  Church  I  have  here  not  time  to  dis- 
cuss. It  is  enough  now"  to  say  that  an  opinion  accord- 
ing to  which  our  articulate  reason,  as  well  as  the 
more  inarticulate  intuition  of  faith,  has  some  sort  of 
access  to  the  world  of  the  "Logos,"  and  some  sort 
of  participation  in  a  genuine  apprehension  of  the 
divine  life,  has  come  to  form  part  of  the  religion  in 
which  you  all  have  been  trained.  In  so  far,  then, 
it  is  surely  right  to  say  that  the  reason,  as  the  philos- 
ophers have  defined  it,  has  been  an  actual  source  of 
religious  opinion  and  experience. 

In  modern  times,  and  especially  since  Kant,  phil- 
osophy has  been  led  to  see  the  older  doctrines  of  the 
human  reason,  and  of  its  knowledge  of  the  divine, 
from  various  decidedly  novel  points  of  view.  The 
sketch  of  a  theory  of  the  reason  as  a  source  of  insight, 
which  I  gave,  was  influenced  by  Kant's  famous 
teaching  about  the  nature  and  unity  of  human  ex- 
perience. Kant  stated  this  theory  as  the  doctrine 
that  all  our  human  knowledge  involves  an  inter- 


122  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

pretation  of  the  data  of  our  senses  in  the  hght  of 
what  he  called  the  "  unity  of  apperception."  In  less 
technical  terms,  Kant's  meaning  is  that  all  facts  of 
which  a  human  experience  can  obtain  knowledge 
are  known  to  us  as  the  possible  objects  of  an  insight 
which  we  conceive  to  be  virtually  one,  as  the  in- 
sight of  our  own  truly  kno^vdng  Self,  and  as  the  in- 
sight without  reference  to  which  no  opinion  of  ours 
has  any  sense  whatever.  This  one  cognitive  Self  is, 
according  to  Kant,  the  conceived  virtual  subject 
or  possessor  of  all  that  we  view  as  our  experience. 
And  this  presupposed  unity  is  the  condition  of  all 
our  knowledge. 

But  Kant's  doctrine,  as  he  stated  it,  is  in  many 
ways  problematic  and  dissatisfying.  The  form  of 
philosophical  idealism  which  I  myself  defend  goes 
in  certain  respects  far  beyond  Kant's  position. 
The  "one  experience,"  in  which,  according  to  him, 
we  find  a  place  for  any  fact  which  we  conceive  as 
knowable  at  all,  is  defined  by  Kant  as  a  virtual  in- 
sight, not,  so  to  speak,  a  live  and  concrete  con- 
sciousness. He  regards  it  also  as  purely  human,  as 
a  knowledge  of  appearances — not  of  any  ultimate 
realities.  The  form  of  philosophical  idealism  which, 
at  the  last  time,  I  outlined  depends,  however,  upon 
simply  universalising,  and  rendering  live  and  con- 
crete, Kant's  conception  of  the  Self,  of  the  united 
experience,  to  which  we  appeal,  and  in  the  light  of 
which  our  opinions  get  all  their  sense — all  their 
character  and  value  as  true  or  as  false  opinions. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  123 

This  one  Self,  this  unity  of  experience,  to  which  we 
always  appeal,  cannot  consistently  be  viewed  by  us 
as  merely  our  own  individual  or  private  self,  or  as 
merely  human;  audits  insight  cannot  rationally  be 
interpreted  merely  as  an  insight  into  what  is  appar- 
ent, that  is  into  what  is  not  really  real.  Nor  can  it 
be  viewed  merely  as  something  virtual — a  possible 
unity  of  experience,  to  which  we  would  appeal  if  we 
could.  In  my  opinion  it  must  be  conceived  as  more 
live  and  real  and  concrete  and  conscious  and  genu- 
ine than  are  any  of  our  passing  moments  of  fleeting 
human  experience.  It  must  be  viewed  as  an  actual 
and  inclusive  and  divinely  rational  knowledge  of  all 
facts  in  their  unity.  And  the  very  nature  of  facts, 
their  very  being  as  facts,  must  be  determined  by 
their  presence  as  objects  in  the  experience  of  this 
world-embracing  insight.  This  was  the  philosoph- 
ical theory  that  I  sketched  in  my  former  lecture. 
This  is  my  view  of  what  reason  teaches. 

Now  this  thesis,  this  somewhat  remote  descendant 
of  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  function  of  reason, 
this  modern  version  of  the  concept  of  the  "Logos" 
as  the  light  that  "shineth  in  the  darkness"  of  our 
ordinary  human  experience,  this  revision  and  trans- 
formation of  the  Kantian  theory  of  knowledge,  has, 
by  virtue  of  the  long  history  of  the  doctrine  in  ques- 
tion, and  by  virtue  of  the  difficult  considerations 
upon  which,  as  a  philosophical  thesis,  it  rests,  a 
highly  technical  character.  This  technical  aspect 
of  the  teaching  in  question  forbids,  in  these  lectures. 


124  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

any  adequate  exposition,  or  criticism,  or  defence  of 
its  problems  and  of  its  merits  as  a  basis  for  a  system 
of  philosophy.  And  you  will  surely  not  find  un- 
natural the  fact  that  a  study  of  the  function  of  the 
reason  should  indeed  involve  such  technical  and  com- 
plex issues.  I  mention  these  issues  only  to  say  at 
once  how  and  how  far,  in  the  present  lectures,  we 
are  concerned  with  them. 

We  are  seeking  a  way  of  salvation.  And  in  these 
discussions  we  are  mainly  concerned  with  the  sources 
of  insight  into  what  that  way  is.  I  am  not  attempt- 
ing to  work  out,  in  your  presence,  a  systematic  phil- 
osophy. Why,  then,  have  I  introduced  this  mere 
sketch  of  philosophical  idealism  into  our  inevitably 
crowded  programme?  I  answer:  I  have  done  so 
because  I  have  wanted  to  illustrate  the  oflBce  of 
reason  by  telling  you  in  my  own  way  how  I  view  the 
matter.  The  reason  is,  in  fact,  a  source  of  religious 
insight  to  many  people  who  do  not  reflect  upon 
its  deliverances  as  philosophers  seek  to  reflect,  and 
who  may  not  agree  with  me  in  what  little  I  have 
time  to  expound  of  my  own  philosophical  opinions. 
My  effort  has  been  to  tell  in  philosophical  terms 
what  such  people  really  mean. 

In  such  people  reason  very  often  shows  itself  in- 
directly and  concretely,  by  its  fruits,  through  their 
deeds,  through  their  purpose,  in  a  word,  through 
their  will.  We  shall  ere  long  see  how  this  can  be 
and  is  the  case.  Reason  is  present  in  such  lives 
and  inspires  them.    A  genuine  relation  to  some 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  125 

spirit  of  all  truth,  a  perfectly  sincere  touch  with  an 
articulate  and  universal  insight,  a  translation  of  the 
lesson  and  the  meaning  of  the  synthetic  reason  into  a 
definite  practical  postulate  that  life  shall  be  and  is 
an  essentially  reasonable  and  therefore  an   essen- 
tially divine  enterprise — such  I  find  to  be  the  es- 
sence of  the  religious  insight  of  many  serious  minds. 
Beside  the  earnest  devotion  of  such  people  to  the 
business  which  life  assigns  to  them,  the  mere  theories 
of  a  philosopher  may  seem  shadowy  enough.     And 
if  such  people  comment  upon  what  they  hear  of  my 
philosophy  by  saying  that  they  do  not  understand 
it,  and  doubt  whether  they  agree  with  it,  I  am  not 
on  that  account  at  all  disposed  to  complain  of  them, 
or  to  assert  that  reason  is  to  them  no  source  of 
rehgious  insight.     I  take  pleasure,  however,  in  ob- 
serving that,  in  my  opinion,  they  agree  with  my 
doctrine  in  the  concrete,  and  express  it  in  their 
religious  life  far  better  than  I  can  express  it  in  my 
technical  terms,  however  much  these  people  may 
fail  to  grasp  what  my  terms  mean  or  to  accept  my 
formulations.     The  best  expression  of  your  reason 
is  your  life,  if  you  live  as  one  enlightened  from  above 
ought  to  five.     You  are  not  obliged  to  accept  a 
technical  formula  in  order  to  embody  the  spirit  of 
that  formula  in  your  daily  work.     I  know  many 
men  who  are  far  more  the  servants  and  ministers 
of  the  true  rational  insight  than,  in  my  present 
human  life,  I  shall  ever  succeed  in  becoming,  and 
who,   nevertheless,   either  are  impatient   of  every 


126  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

philosophical  theory,  or,  if  philosophically  trained, 
are  opposed  to  me  in  my  philosophy. 

Nevertheless,  I  need  to  express,  in  my  own  way, 
what  is  the  insight  that  is  really  at  the  heart  of  the 
lives  of  just  such  people.  WTiat  I  am  first  inter- 
ested in  emphasising  is  of  course  this,  that,  in  my 
opinion,  my  interpretation  of  the  insight  of  which 
reason  is  the  source,  actually  expresses  one  impor- 
tant aspect  of  the  spirit  in  which  those  live  whom  I 
regard  as  the  true  servants  of  the  divine  reason. 
But  my  interest  in  the  matter  does  not  cease  here. 
I  can,  of  course,  express  my  opinions  only  in  the 
terms  that  appeal  to  me.  But  whatever  you  think 
of  my  formulas,  I  am  very  anxious  to  have  you  see 
that,  as  the  life  of  such  people  convincingly  shows, 
reason  has  been,  and  is,  a  source  of  religious  insight 
to  them,  and  that  our  philosophical  differences  re- 
late simply  to  the  way  in  which  we  formulate  our 
interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  this  source. 

Reason  has  been  such  a  source  of  insight.  That 
is  true  as  an  historical  fact.  If  you  can  find  any- 
thing in  the  Platonic  dialogues  which  appeals  to  you 
as  involving  an  insight  that  has  religious  value,  you 
must  recognise  this  truth.  It  is  a  mere  matter  of 
history  that  Christian  doctrine  as  it  has  come  down 
to  us  is,  in  one  aspect,  profoundly  affected  by  Plato's 
influence.  The  myth  of  the  men  in  the  cave,  in  the 
"Platonic  Republic,"  the  myth  in  Plato's  "Phsedrus," 
which  tells  about  the  banishment  of  the  soul  from 
its  heavenly  life  and  from  its  intercourse  with  the 


Sources  of  Religixms  Insight  127 

ideal  world,  and  which  interprets  all  our  loftier 
human  loves  as  a  longing  of  the  soul  for  its  divine 
home  land — these  m}i;hs  are  allegories  which  Plato 
intended  to  illustrate  his  own  view  of  what  reason 
teaches  us.  These  myths  express  in  figurative 
speech  a  philosophy  that  actually  affects  to-day  your 
own  religious  interests.  For  instance,  this  philoso- 
phy influences  your  traditional  conception  of  God, 
and  your  ideas  about  the  immortal  life  of  the  soul. 
And  if  the  prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  seems 
to  you  to  contain  any  truth,  your  religious  ideas 
are  again  moulded  by  a  form  of  ancient  philoso- 
phy which  dealt  with  the  nature  and  with  the  in- 
sight of  the  reason.  My  own  sketch  of  modern  phil- 
osophy is  but  a  reinterpretation  of  the  very  truth 
which  that  ancient  doctrine  attempted  to  portray. 
Historically,  then,  some  of  your  religious  opinions 
are  actually  due  to  the  work  of  the  reason.  My 
philosophy  simply  tries  to  interpret  to  you  this 
work. 

And  reason  not  only  has  been,  but  now  is,  such  a 
source  of  insight.  And  this  is  the  case  whenever 
you  try  to  apply  the  "  rule  of  reason  "  to  any  problem 
of  your  life,  and  hereby  gain  a  confidence  that,  by 
being  as  reasonable  and  fair  as  you  can,  you  are 
learning  to  conform  your  life  to  the  view  which,  as 
you  suppose,  an  all-wise  God  takes  of  its  meaning. 
My  philosophy  simply  tries  to  tell  you  why  you 
have  a  right  to  hold  that  an  all-wise  being  is  real. 

I  am  anxious,  I  say,  to  have  such  facts  about  the 


128  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

oflSce  of  reason  recognised,  whatever  you  may  think 
of  my  philosophy.  And  this  is  my  purpose  when 
I  use  my  philosophy  merely  to  illustrate  the  oflBce 
of  reason.  For  indispensable  as  individual  religious 
experience  is,  in  all  the  capriciousness  of  its  feelings 
— indispensable  also  as  social  religious  experience  is, 
with  all  its  insistence  upon  human  love  and  also  upon 
human  religious  convention — the  synthetic  use  of 
the  reason,  that  is,  the  systematic  effort  "  to  see  life 
steadily  and  see  it  whole,"  is  also  indispensable. 
The  recent  efforts  to  make  light  of  the  work  of  reason 
— efforts  to  which,  at  the  last  lecture,  I  directed  your 
attention,  w^ould  tend,  if  taken  by  themselves,  to 
result  in  basing  religion  upon  an  inarticulate  occult- 
ism, upon  a  sort  of  psychical  research  that  would 
regard  whatever  witch  may  peep  and  mutter,  what- 
ever mystic  may  be  unable  to  tell  what  he  means, 
whatever  dumb  cry  of  the  soul  may  remain  stub- 
bornly inarticulate,  as  a  more  promising  religious 
guide  than  is  any  form  of  serious  and  far-seeing  de- 
votion to  the  wider  insight,  which  ought  to  survey 
life  and  to  light  our  path. 

Let  my  own  appeal  to  philosophy,  then,  even  if 
you  do  not  agree  with  my  formulas,  stand  as  my 
protest  against  occultism  and  against  the  exclusive 
devotion  to  the  inarticulate  sources  of  religious  in- 
sight. That  I  also  prize  the  perfectly  indispensable 
office  of  the  more  child-like  intuitions,  when  they 
occupy  their  true  place,  you  already  know  from  my 
first  two  lectures.     We  cannot  in  our  present  life 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  129 

do  without  these  child-like  intuitions.  We  cannot 
be  just  to  them  without  aiming  to  Hve  beyond  them 
and  to  put  away  childish  things. 


II 

If  my  interpretation  of  the  reason  thus  gets  its 
worth  from  the  fact  that  it  attempts  by  a  formula 
simply  to  illustrate  the  view  which  the  servants  of 
the  divine  reason  actually  and  practically  translate 
into  life,  and  express  through  their  spirit  and  through 
their  deeds,  you  may  hereupon  object  that  my  view 
of  the  reason  as  a  source  of  religious  insight  still 
seems  to  you  to  be  one  which  it  is  not  easy  to  trans- 
late into  life  at  all.  What  does  it  profit  a  man,  you 
will  say,  to  view  the  whole  world  as  the  object 
present  to  an  all-embracing  and  divine  insight? 
How  does  such  a  view  give  a  man  the  power  to  live 
more  reasonably  than  he  otherwise  would  live?  Is 
a  world-embracing  reason  that  sees  all  things  in 
their  unity  really  that  master  of  life  whom  our  sim- 
pler rehgious  intuitions  call  upon  us  to  seek  as  our 
Deliverer  from  our  natural  chaos  of  desires?  I  have 
just  asserted  that  there  are  people  who  devote  their 
lives  to  the  service  of  such  a  divine  reason.  But  if 
the  divine  reason  is  eternal  and  perfect,  and  if  it 
sees  all  reality  as  an  unity,  and  if  this  is  its  only 
function,  how  can  any  one  serve  it  at  all?  The 
eternal  needs  no  help,  you  may  insist,  and  appar- 
ently has  no  concern  for  us.     We  need,  for  our  sal- 


130  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

vation,  something,  or  some  personal  deliverer,  that 
can  teach  us  not  merely  to  utter  true  assertions,  but 
to  live  worthy  lives.  How  does  the  insight  of  the 
reason  enlighten  us  in  this  respect?  What  would 
one  do  for  a  divine  Logos,  for  an  all-observant  and 
all-comprehending  seer?  Could  one  love  such  a 
being,  or  devoutly  commune  with  his  perfect  but 
motionless  wisdom?  Is  it  true  then,  as  I  have  just 
maintained  it  to  be  true,  that  the  insight  of  the 
reason,  as  I  have  expounded  it  in  my  sketch  of  a 
philosophy,  does  really  inspire  the  earnest  and  de- 
voted souls  whose  spirit  I  have  attempted  to  express? 
Whatever  they  may  think  of  my  philosophy,  have  I 
been  just  to  their  practical  fervour  and  to  their  ener- 
getic devotion?  Do  they  merely  say:  God  is  om- 
niscient, therefore  our  life  has  its  purpose  defined, 
and  we  are  saved? 

In  brief,  the  insight  of  the  reason,  as  I  have  been 
stating  its  dicta,  may  seem  to  you,  at  best,  to  show 
us  a  sort  of  heaven  which,  as  I  said,  overarches  our 
unwisdom  with  its  starry  clearness,  but  which  as 
you  may  now  add  we  can  neither  reach,  nor  use, 
nor  regard  as  a  rational  inspiration  of  our  active 
life.  If  it  is  real,  it  can  observe  us,  as  it  observes 
all  reality.  But  can  it  save  us?  It  can  rise  above 
us.  But  can  it  enter  into  our  will  and  give  us  a 
plan  of  life?  Granting  the  validity  of  the  argument 
sketched  in  our  last  lecture,  what  has  the  all-wise 
knower  of  truth  to  do  with  our  salvation? 

These  are  familiar  objections  to  su^jh  a  view  as 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  131 

mine.  James  repeatedly  urged  them  in  his  com- 
ment upon  what  he  regarded  as  not  merely  the  falli- 
bility, but  the  futility,  or,  as  he  said,  the  "thinness" 
of  the  idealistic  interpretation  of  the  world  of  the 
reason.  Similar  objections  have  been  urged  by 
many  of  the  critics  of  any  doctrine  similar  to  mine. 
Are  these  objections  just? 

Ill 

I  can  answer  such  questions  only  through  a  cer- 
tain gradual  approach  to  their  complications.  I 
want  to  show  you  how  the  insight  of  the  reason  not 
only  points  out  a  heaven  that  overarches  us,  but  also 
reveals  an  influence  that  can  inwardly  transform  us. 
To  this  end  I  shall  next  illustrate,  by  instances  taken 
from  life,  how  some  people  actually  view  their  own 
personal  relations  to  what  they  take  to  be  the  divine 
reason.  I  shall  thus  indicate  in  what  way  such 
people  connect  this  divine  reason  with  personal 
needs  of  their  own  which  they  regard  as  vital. 
Then  I  shall  show  why  this  not  only  is  so  in  the 
lives  of  some  people,  but  ought  to  be  so  for  all  of 
us.  As  a  result  we  shall  soon  find  that,  just  as 
our  first  statement  of  the  insight  of  reason,  if  in- 
deed it  is  a  true  statement,  transforms  our  view  of 
the  sense  in  which  the  world  is  real,  so  a  deeper 
study  of  the  relations  of  insight  to  action  transforms 
our  first  cruder  notion  of  the  reason  itself,  of  its 
office  in  life,  and  of  the  truth  that  it  rereveals. 


132  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

I  begin  with  illustrations  taken  from  life.  A 
former  college  student  of  mine,  some  of  whose  papers 
upon  his  own  religious  experience  I  was  not  very 
long  ago  privileged  to  read,  undertook,  in  one  of 
these  papers,  to  explain  how,  at  the  time,  he  viewed 
the  place  of  prayer  in  his  own  life.  He  was  a  man 
capable,  upon  the  one  hand,  of  deep  emotion  and  of 
rich  inner  life,  but  on  the  other  hand  highly  self- 
critical  and  disposed  to  doubt.  After  a  somewhat 
plentiful  early  interest  in  religion,  the  result  of  home 
training  and  of  personal  experience,  he  had  come, 
as  he  studied  more,  and  looked  about  his  world  more 
critically,  to  part  company  almost  altogether  with 
positive  faiths  about  religious  matters.  His  child- 
hood beliefs  had  dropped  away.  Doubts  and  dis- 
beliefs had  taken  their  place.  In  opinion,  when  he 
wrote  his  papers  for  me,  he  was  mainly  disposed  to 
a  pure  naturalism.  The  gods  of  the  past  had  van- 
ished from  his  life  almost  altogether. 

"But,"  said  he,  in  his  account  (I  follow  not  his 
exact  words  but  their  general  sense),  "one  old  religi- 
ous exercise  I  have  never  quite  given  up.  That  was 
and  is  prayer.  A  good  while  ago  I  dropped  all  con- 
ventional forms  of  prayer.  I  did  not  say  my  pray- 
ers in  the  old  way.  And  when  I  prayed  I  no  longer 
fancied  that  the  course  of  nature  or  of  my  luck  was 
going  to  be  altered  for  my  sake,  or  that  my  prayers 
would  help  me  to  avoid  any  consequences  of  my 
folly  or  my  ignorance.  I  did  not  pray  to  get  any- 
body to  mix  in  my  affairs,  so  as  to  get  me  things 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  133 

that  I  wanted.  But  this  was,  and  is,  my  feeling 
about  prayer:  When  things  are  too  much  for  me, 
and  I  am  down  on  my  luck,  and  everything  is  dark, 
I  go  alone  by  myself,  and  I  bury  my  head  in  my 
hands,  and  I  think  hard  that  God  must  know  it  all 
and  will  see  how  matters  really  are,  and  understands 
me,  and  in  just  that  way  alone,  by  understanding 
me,  will  help  me.  And  so  I  try  to  get  myself  to- 
gether.    And  that,  for  me,  is  prayer." 

I  cannot  repeat  my  student's  precise  form  of  ex- 
pression. I  think  that  I  express  to  you  the  spirit 
of  what  he  wrote.  In  any  case,  this  form  of  prayer 
is  not  peculiar  to  that  man.  You  see  in  what  way 
the  thought  of  the  divine  wisdom  became  a  practical 
thought  for  him — a  thought  at  once  rational  and, 
as  far  as  it  went,  saving.  When  life  shattered  his 
little  human  plans — well,  he  lifted  up  his  eyes  unto 
the  hills.  He  won  a  sort  of  conscious  and  reason- 
able union  with  the  all-seeing  life.  He  did  not  ask 
its  aid  as  a  giver  of  good  fortunes.  He  waited  pa- 
tiently for  the  light.  Now  I  do  not  think  that  to 
be  an  expression  of  the  whole  insight  of  reason;  but, 
so  far  as  it  went,  that  sort  of  prayer  was  an  essen- 
tially religious  act.  And  for  that  youth  it  was  also 
a  very  practical  act. 

Let  me  turn  to  another  case.  Many  years  ago  I 
well  knew  a  man,  much  older  than  myself,  who  has 
long  since  died.  A  highly  intelligent  man,  ambitious 
for  the  things  of  the  spirit,  he  was  also  beset  with 
some   defects   of   health  and  with  many  worldly 


134  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

cares.  His  defects  of  health  made  him  sensitive  to 
the  sort  of  observation  that  his  physical  weaknesses 
often  attracted.  In  addition,  he  had  enemies,  and 
once  had  to  endure  the  long-continued  trial  of  a 
public  attack  upon  his  reputation — an  attack  from 
which  he  at  length  came  forth  triumphant,  but  not 
without  long  suffering.  Once  I  heard  him  telling 
about  his  own  religion,  which  was  the  faith  of  a 
highly  independent  mind.  "What  I  most  value 
about  my  thought  of  God,"  he  in  effect  said,  "is 
that  I  conceive  God  as  the  one  who  knows  us  through 
and  through,  and  who  estimates  us  not  as  we  seem, 
but  as  we  are,  and  who  is  absolutely  fair  in  his  judg- 
ment of  us."  My  friend  had  no  concern  for  future 
rewards  and  punishments.  The  judgment  of  God 
to  which  he  appealed,  and  In  which,  without  any 
vanity,  he  delighted,  was  simply  the  fair  and  true 
judgment,  the  divine  knowing  of  us  all  just  as  we 
are. 

Now  do  you  not  know  people  whose  religion  is  of 
this  sort?  And  are  not  all  such  forms  of  religion,  as 
far  as  they  go,  practical?  Is  the  recognition  of  an  all- 
seeing  insight,  as  something  real,  not  in  itself  calm- 
ing, sustaining,  rationalising?  Does  it  not  at  the 
very  least  awaken  in  us  the  ideal  which  I  repeatedly 
mentioned  in  our  last  lecture,  the  ideal  of  knowing 
ourselves  even  as  we  are  known,  and  of  guiding  our 
lives  in  the  light  of  such  a  view  of  ourselves?  Can 
such  an  ideal  remain  wholly  a  matter  of  theory?  Is 
it  not  from  its  very  essence  an  appeal  to  the  will? 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  135 

Was  not  my  elder  friend  finding  a  guiding  principle 
of  action  in  a  world  where  he  was  often  misunder- 
stood? Could  one  steadily  conceive  God  in  these 
terms  without  constantly  renewing  one's  power  to 
face  the  world  with  courage? 

Surely  you  all  know  many  people  who  value  the 
divine  as  they  define  the  divine,  mainly  because  they 
conceive  God  as  what  they  call  the  Great  Companion. 
And,  for  many  such,  it  is  the  intimately  perfect  in- 
sight of  this  companion  that  they  seem  to  themselves 
most  to  value.  The  ways  of  this  companion  are  to^ 
them  mysterious.  But  he  knows  them.  They  re- 
peat the  word:  "He  knoweth  the  way  that  I  take." 
He  sees-them.  He  is  close  to  them.  He  estimates 
them.  So  they  view  the  matter.  Is  not  such  a 
conception  a  vitally  important  spring  of  action  for 
those  who  possess  it? 

These  illustrations  suggest  that  one  ill  appreciates 
the  insight  of  reason,  even  as  so  imperfectly  and  one- 
sidedly  sketched  by  me  at  the  last  lecture,  who  does 
not  see  that  this  insight  has  an  extremely  close  con- 
nection with  the  will. 


IV 

Our  illustrations  have  now  prepared  the  way  for 
a  general  review  of  the  relations  between  our  reason 
and  our  will.  We  are  ready  at  length  to  ask  whether 
any  insight  of  reason,  whether  any  general  view  of 
the  nature  and  of  the  unity  of  the  world  or  of  life. 


136  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

could  possibly  be  a  merely  theoretical  insight.  And 
if  we  rightly  answer  this  question,  we  shall  be  pre- 
pared to  reply  to  the  objection  that,  according  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  last  lecture,  the  divine  insight  which 
overarches  our  ignorance,  and  which  has  all  reality 
for  its  object,  is  a  lifeless,  or  an  unpractical,  or  a 
merely  remote  type  of  pure  knowledge. 

Our  attempt  to  deal  with  this  new  question  can 
best  be  made  by  taking  a  direct  advantage  of  what 
some  of  you  may  suppose  to  be  the  most  formidable 
of  all  objections  to  the  whole  argument  of  the  last 
lecture.  In  my  sketch  of  a  philosophy  of  the  reason, 
I  have  so  far  deliberately  avoided  mentioning  what 
many  of  you  will  have  had  in  mind  as  you  have 
listened  to  me,  namely,  that  doctrine  about  our 
knowledge,  and  about  truth,  and  about  our  mode  of 
access  to  truth,  which  to-day  goes  by  the  name  of 
Pragmatism.  Here  we  have  to  do,  once  more,  with 
some  of  the  favourite  theses  of  James's  later  years. 
We  have  also  to  do  with  a  view  with  which  my  pres- 
ent audience  is  likely  to  be  familiar,  at  least  so  far  as 
concerns  both  the  name  pragmatism  and  the  best- 
known  fundamental  theses  of  the  pragmatist.  For 
I  speak  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  one  of 
the  most  famous  strongholds  of  the  recent  prag- 
matic movement.  I  can  give  but  a  comparatively 
small  portion  of  our  limited  time  to  the  task  of  ex- 
plaining to  you  how  I  view  those  aspects  of  prag- 
matism which  here  concern  our  enterprise.  Yet  this 
summary  discussion  will  go  far,  I  hope,  to  show  how 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  137 

I  view  the  relations  between  the  reason  and  the  will, 
and  in  how  far  our  will  also  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
source  of  religious  insight. 

That  human  knowledge  is  confined  to  the  range 
furnished  by  human  experience,  and  cannot  be  used 
to  transcend  that  experience,  is  an  opinion  widely 
represented  in  all  modern  discussion,  and  especially 
in  the  most  recent  times.  My  own  account  of  the 
insight  which  I  refer  to  the  reason  depends  not  upon 
simply  ignoring  this  general  doctrine  about  the  limi- 
tations of  our  human  knowledge,  but  upon  an  effort 
to  get  a  rational  view  of  what  it  is  that  we  mean  by 
human  experience.  My  result,  as  I  have  stated  it, 
may  have  seemed  paradoxical;  and  I  am  far  from 
supposing  that  my  brief  sketch  could  remove  this 
paradoxical  seeming,  or  could  answer  all  objections. 
My  thesis  is  essentially  this,  that  you  cannot  ration- 
ally conceive  what  human  experience  is,  and  means, 
except  by  regarding  it  as  the  fragment  of  an  experi- 
ence that  is  infinitely  richer  than  ours,  and  that  pos- 
sesses a  world-embracing  unity  and  completeness  of 
constitution.  My  argument  for  this  thesis  has  been 
dependent  on  an  assertion  about  the  sense  in  which 
any  opinion  whatever  can  be  either  true  or  false, 
and  upon  a  doctrine  regarding  that  insight  to  which 
we  appeal  whenever  we  make  any  significant  assertion. 

Now  this  argument  will  seem  to  some  of  you  to 
have  been  wholly  set  aside  by  that  account  of  the 
nature  of  judgments,  of  assertions,  and  of  their  truth 
or  falsity,  which  pragmatism  has  recently  main- 


138  Sources  of  Religious  Imiglit 

tained.  A  new  definition  of  truth,  you  will  say— or, 
an  old  definition  revived  and  revised;  a  new  clear- 
ness also  as  to  the  ancient  issues  of  philosophy;  an 
equally  novel  recent  assimilation  of  philosophical 
methods  to  those  that  have  long  been  prominent  in 
natural  science — these  things  have  combined,  at  the 
present  moment,  to  render  the  Platonic  tradition  in 
philosophy  and  the  laborious  deductions  of  Kant,  as 
well  as  the  speculations  of  the  post-Kantian  idealists, 
no  longer  interesting.  I  ought,  you  may  insist,  to 
have  taken  note  of  this  fact  before  presenting  my 
now  antiquated  version  of  the  idealistic  doctrine  of 
the  reason.  I  ought  to  have  considered  fairly  the 
pragmatist's  theory  of  truth.  I  should  then  have 
seen  that  our  human  experience  may  safely  be  left 
and  must  rationally  be  left,  to  fight  its  own  way  to 
salvation  without  any  aid  from  the  idea  of  an  uni- 
versal or  all-embracing  or  divine  insight. 

How  does  pragmatism  view  the  very  problem 
about  the  truth  and  error  of  our  human  opinions 
which  has  led  me  to  such  far-reaching  consequences? 
For  the  first,  it  is  the  boast  of  pragmatists  that  they 
deal,  by  preference,  with  what  they  call  "concrete 
situations,"  and  our  "  concrete  situation  "  as  human 
beings  dealing  with  reality  is,  as  they  maintain, 
something  much  more  readily  comprehensible  than 
is  the  idealistic  theory  of  a  divine  insight.  Truth 
and  error  are  characters  that  belong  to  our  assei- 
tions  for  reasons  which  need  no  overarching  heavenly 
insight  to  make  them  clear.     In  brief,  as  the  prag- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  139 

matists  tell  us,  the  story  of  the  nature  of  truth  and  of 
error  is  this : 

An  assertion,  a  judgment,  is  always  an  active  atti- 
tude of  a  man,  whereby,  at  the  moment  when  he 
makes  this  assertion  he  directs  the  course  of  his 
further  activities.  To  say  "My  best  way  out  of 
the  woods  lies  in  that  direction  "  is,  for  a  wanderer 
lost  in  the  forest,  simply  to  point  out  a  rule  or  plan 
of  action  and  to  expect  certain  results  from  follow- 
ing out  that  plan.  This  illustration  of  the  man  in 
the  woods  is  due  to  James.  An  analogous  prin- 
ciple, according  to  pragmatism,  holds  for  any  asser- 
tion. To  judge  is  to  expect  some  concrete  conse- 
quence to  follow  from  some  form  of  activity.  An 
assertion  has  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  it  refers  to 
some  object  that  can  be  defined  in  empirical  terms 
and  that  can  be  subjected  to  further  direct  or  in- 
direct tests,  whereby  its  relations  to  our  own  activi- 
ties can  become  determinate.  Thus,  then,  a  judg- 
ment, an  opinion,  if  it  means  anything  concrete,  is 
always  an  appeal  to  more  or  less  accessible  human 
experience — and  is  not,  as  I  have  been  asserting,  an 
appeal  to  an  overarching  higher  insight.  When  you 
make  any  significant  assertion,  you  appeal  to  what- 
ever concrete  human  observations,  experiments,  or 
other  findings  of  data,  actual  or  possible,  can  furnish 
the  test  that  the  opinion  calls  for.  If  I  assert:  "It 
will  rain  to-morrow,"  the  assertion  is  to  be  verified 
or  refuted  by  the  experience  of  men  just  as  they  live, 
from  moment  to  moment. 


140  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

It  remains  to  define,  a  little  more  precisely,  wherein 
consists  this  empirical  verification  or  refutation  for 
which  a  human  opinion  calls.  An  opinion  is  a  defi- 
nite one,  as  has  just  been  said,  because  it  guides  the 
will  of  the  person  who  holds  the  opinion  to  some 
definite  course  of  action.  An  opinion  then,  if  sin- 
cere and  significant,  has  consequences,  leads  to  deeds, 
modifies  conduct,  and  is  thus  the  source  of  the  ex- 
periences which  one  gets  as  a  result  of  holding  that 
opinion  and  of  acting  upon  it.  In  brief,  an  opinion 
has  what  the  pragmatists  love  to  call  its  "icorkings." 
Now  when  the  workings  of  a  given  opinion,  the 
empirical  results  to  which,  through  our  actions,  it 
leads,  agree  with  the  expectations  of  the  one  who 
holds  the  opinion,  the  opinion  is  to  be  called  true. 
Or,  in  the  now  well-known  phrase,  "An  idea  (or 
opinion)  is  true  if  it  works."  To  use  the  repeated 
example  of  Professor  Moore,  an  opinion  that  a  cer- 
tain toothache  is  due  to  a  condition  present  in  a 
given  tooth  is  true,  when  an  operation  performed 
upon  that  tooth,  and  performed  as  a  consequence 
of  that  opinion,  and  with  the  expectation  of  curing 
the  toothache  works  as  expected.  For  the  opera- 
tion is  itself  one  of  the  workings  of  the  opinion  in 
question. 

To  assert  an  opinion,  then,  is  not  to  appeal  to  an 
essentially  superior  insight,  but  is  to  appeal  to  the 
workings  that  follow  from  this  opinion  when  you 
act  upon  it  in  concrete  life.  No  other  sort  of  truth 
is  knowable. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  141 

A  consequence  of  these  views,  often  insisted  upon 
by  pragmatists,  is  that  truth  is  relative  to  the 
various  "concrete  situations"  which  arise;  so  that 
absolute  or  final  truth  is  indefinable  by  us  mortals. 
Hence  an  opinion  may  be  true  for  a  given  purpose, 
or  in  one  situation  (because  in  that  situation  its 
workings  prove  to  be  as  expected),  although  it  is 
relatively  false  when  applied  to  some  other  situa- 
tion, or  to  some  wider  range  of  experience.  Absolute 
truth  is  as  unobservable  by  us  in  our  experience  as  is 
absolute  position  or  absolute  motion  in  the  physical 
world.  Every  truth  is  definable  with  reference  to 
somebody's  intentions,  actions,  and  successes  or 
failures.  These  things  change  from  person  to  per- 
son, from  time  to  time,  from  plan  to  plan.  What  is 
true  from  the  point  of  view  of  my  plans  need  not 
be  so  from  your  point  of  view.  The  workings  of  an 
opinion  vary  in  their  significance  with  the  expecta- 
tions of  those  concerned.  Truth  absolute  is  at  best 
a  mere  ideal,  which  for  us  throws  no  light  upon  the 
nature  of  the  real  world. 

Thus,  at  a  stroke,  pragmatism,  as  understood  by 
its  chief  representatives  at  the  present  time,  is  sup- 
posed to  make  naught  of  the  subtle,  and,  as  the 
pragmatists  say,  airy  and  fantastic  considerations 
upon  which  my  sketch  of  a  philosophical  idealism 
at  the  last  lecture  depended.  Truth,  they  insist,  is  a 
perfectly  human  and  for  us  mortals  not  in  the  least 
a  supernatural  affair.  We  test  it  as  we  can,  by 
following  the  experienced  workings  to  which  our 


142  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ideas  lead.  If  these  workings  are  what  we  meant 
them  to  be,  our  opinions  are  just  in  so  far  proven 
true.  If  no  human  and  empirical  tests  of  the  work- 
ings of  an  opinion  are  accessible  to  us,  the  opinion 
remains  in  so  far  meaningless.  If  concrete  tests 
lead  to  workings  that  disappoint  our  human  expec- 
tations, our  opinions  are  in  so  far  false.  Moreover 
(and  upon  this  all  the  pragmatists  lay  great  stress), 
truth  is  for  us  a  temporal  affair.  It  changes,  it 
flows,  it  grows,  it  decays.  It  can  be  made  eternal 
only  by  tying  ourselves,  for  a  given  purpose,  to  ab- 
stract ideas  which  we  arbitrarily  require  to  remain, 
like  mathematical  definitions,  unchanged.  Even 
such  ideas  have  no  sense  apart  from  the  uses  to 
which  they  can  be  put.  Concrete  truth  grows  or 
diminishes  as  our  successes  in  controlling  our  ex- 
perience, through  acting  upon  our  beliefs,  wax  or 
wane. .  Truth  is  subject  to  all  the  processes  of  the 
(evolution  of  our  concrete  lives.  The  eternal  is 
nothing  that  can  be  for  us  a  Hve  presence.  What 
we  deal  with  is,  like  ourselves,  fluent,  subject  to 
growth  and  decay,  dynamic,  and  never  static. 
The  pragmatist  recoils  with  a  certain  mixture  of 
horror  and  amusement  from  the  conception  of  an 
all-inclusive  divine  insight.  That,  he  says,  would 
be  something  static.  Its  world  of  absolute  reality 
would  be  a  "block  universe"  and  itself  merely  an 
aspect  of  a  part,  or  perhaps  the  whole,  of  just  this 
block.  Its  supposed  truth  would  be  static  like  it- 
self, and  therefore  dead. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  143 

But  does  pragmatism  forbid  us  to  have  religious 
insight?  No;  James,  in  ways  which  you  have  re- 
peatedly heard  me  mention,  insists  that  pragmatism 
leaves  open  ample  room  for  what  he  thinks  to  be 
the  best  sort  of  religion,  namely,  for  a  religion  suited 
to  what  he  calls  the  "dramatic  temper"  of  mind. 
Truth,  so  far  as  we  men  can  attain  to  it,  has  indeed 
to  be  human  enough.  But  nothing  forbids  us  to 
entertain  the  belief  that  there  are  superhuman  and 
supernatural  realities,  forms  of  being,  living  and 
spiritual  personalities,  or  superpersonalities,  as  vari- 
ous and  lofty  as  you  please,  provided  only  that 
they  be  such  as  to  make  whatever  evidence  of  their 
being  is  accessible  to  us  capable  of  definition  in  a 
human  and  empirical  way.  The  truth,  namely,  of 
our  belief  about  such  beings,  has  to  be  tested  by  us 
in  terms  of  our  own  concrete  religious  experience. 
Such  behefs,  like  others,  must  "work"  in  order  to 
be  true.  That  is,  these  beliefs,  however  they  arise, 
must  lead  to  conduct;  and  the  results  of  this  con- 
duct must  tend  to  our  religious  comfort,  to  our  unity 
of  feeling,  to  our  peace,  or  power,  or  saintliness,  or 
other  form  of  spiritual  perfection.  The  fruits  of  the 
spirit  are  the  empirical  tests  of  a  religious  doctrine; 
and,  apart  from  those  uprushes  of  faith  from  the 
subconscious  whereof  we  have  spoken  in  previous 
lectures,  there  are  for  James  no  other  tests  of  the 
truth  of  religious  convictions  than  these.  The  truth 
of  religion  consists  in  its  successful  "workings." 

Hence,  however,  religion  depends  upon  an  ever- 


144  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

renewed  testing  of  its  opinions  through  a  carrying 
of  them  out  in  Hfe.  Insight  would  be  barren  were 
it  not  quickened  and  appHed  through  our  will.  To 
James,  as  we  already  know,  reason,  as  such,  seems 
to  be  of  little  use  in  religion.  But  action,  resolute 
living,  testing  of  your  faith  through  your  works  and 
through  its  own  workings,  this  is  religion — an  end- 
lessly restless  and  dramatic  process,  never  an  union 
with  any  absolute  attainment  of  the  goal. 


Now  in  what  way  can  I  hope,  you  may  ask,  to 
answer  these  impressive  and  to  many  recent  wri- 
ters decisive  considerations  of  the  pragmatists?  My 
answer,  like  my  foregoing  statement  of  my  own 
form  of  ideahsm,  depends  upon  extremely  simple 
considerations.  Their  interest  for  our  discussion 
lies  in  the  fact  that  they  have  to  do  \vdth  the  rela- 
tion between  reason  and  action,  and  between  the  real 
world  and  the  human  will.  As  a  fact,  the  will  as 
well  as  the  reason  is  a  source  of  religious  insight. 
No  truth  is  a  saving  truth — yes,  no  truth  is  a  truth 
at  all  unless  it  guides  and  directs  life.  Therein  I 
heartily  agree  w4th  current  pragmatism  and  with 
James  himself.  On  the  other  hand,  the  will  is  a 
collection  of  restless  caprices  unless  it  is  unified  by 
a  rational  ideal.  And  no  truth  can  have  any  work- 
ings at  all,  without  even  thereby  showing  itself  to 
be,  just  in   so  far  as  it  actually  w^orks,  an  eternal 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  145 

truth.  And,  furthermore,  what  I  have  asserted  about 
the  insight  which  the  reason  gives  us  is  so  far  from 
being  opposed  to  the  pragmatist's  facts,  that  every 
rational  consideration  of  the  type  of  truth  which 
they  define  leads  us  back  to  the  consideration  of 
absolute  truth  and  to  the  assertion  of  an  all-inclusive 
insight.  Only,  when  we  view  this  all-inclusive  in- 
sight from  the  point  of  view  which  the  pragmatists 
now  emphasise  (and  which  I  myself  have  empha- 
sised from  a  period  long  antedating  the  recent  prag- 
matist  movement),  such  a  fair  estimate  of  the  insight 
of  reason  transforms  our  first  and  superficial  opin- 
ion of  its  nature  and  of  its  meaning.  It  becomes 
the  insight  of  a  rational  mil,  whose  expression  is  the 
world,  and  whose  life  is  that  in  which  we  too  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being. 

Let  me  briefly  dwell  on  each  of  the  considerations 
which  I  here  have  in  mind.  To  me,  as  a  philosophi- 
cal student,  they  are  not  new;  for,  as  I  repeat,  I  in- 
sisted upon  them  years  ago,  before  the  modern 
pragmatistic  controversy  began. 

First,  then,  there  are  certain  respects  in  which  I 
fully  agree  with  recent  pragmatism.  I  agree  that 
every  opinion  expresses  an  attitude  of  the  will,  a 
preparedness  for  action,  a  determination  to  guide  a 
plan  of  action  in  accordance  with  an  idea.  Whoever 
asserts  an}i;hing  about  the  way  out  of  the  woods,  or 
about  the  cause  and  possible  cure  of  a  toothache, 
defines  a  course  of  action  in  accordance  with  some 
purpose,  and  amongst  other  things  predicts  the  pos- 


146  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

sible  outcome  of  that  course  of  action.  The  out- 
come that  he  predicts  is  defined  in  terms  of  experi- 
ence, and,  so  far  as  that  is  possible,  in  terms  of 
human  experience.  And  now  this  is  true,  not  only 
of  assertions  or  opinions  about  toothaches.  It  is 
true  also  of  assertions  about  all  objects  in  heaven 
or  earth.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  purely  in- 
tellectual form  of  assertion  which  has  no  element  of 
action  about  it.  An  opinion  is  a  deed.  It  is  a  deed 
intended  to  guide  other  deeds.  It  proposes  to  have 
what  the  pragmatists  call  "workings."  That  is,  it 
undertakes  to  guide  the  life  of  the  one  who  asserts 
the  opinion.  In  that  sense,  all  truth  is  practical. 
If  you  assert  a  proposition  in  mathematics,  you 
propose  to  guide  the  computations,  or  other  synthetic 
processes,  of  whoever  is  interested  in  certain  mathe- 
matical objects.  If  you  say  "There  is  a  God," 
and  know  what  you  mean  by  the  term  "  God,"  you 
lay  down  some  sort  of  rule  for  such  forms  of  action 
as  involve  a  fitting  acknowledgment  of  God's  being 
and  significance.  So  far,  then,  I  wholly  side  with  the 
pragmatists.  There  is  no  pure  intellect.  There  is 
no  genuine  insight  which  does  not  also  exist  as  a 
guide  to  some  sort  of  action. 

Furthermore,  the  proper  "workings"  of  an  asser- 
tion, the  rational  results  of  the  application  of  this 
opinion  to  life,  must,  if  the  assertion  is  true,  agree 
with  the  expectations  of  the  one  who  defines  the 
assertion.  And  these  "workings"  belong,  indeed,  to 
the  realm  of  actual  and  concrete  experience,  be  this 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  147 

experience  wholly  human,  or  be  it,  in  some  respect, 
an  experience  which  is  higher  and  richer  than  any 
merely  human  experience.  Opinions  are  active  ap- 
peals to  real  life — a-  life  to  which  we  are  always 
seeking  to  adjust  ourselves,  and  in  which  we  are 
always  looking  to  find  our  place.  The  quest  for 
salvation  itself  is  such  an  effort  to  adjust  our  own 
life  to  the  world's  life.  And  if  the  world's  life  finds 
our  efforts  to  define  our  relation  to  the  world's  actual 
and  perfectly  concrete  experience  inadequate,  then 
our  assertions  are  in  just  so  far  false;  they  lead  in 
that  case  to  blundering  actions.  We  fail.  And  in 
such  cases  our  opinions,  indeed,  "do  not  work." 

All  this  I  myself  insist  upon.  But  next  I  ask  you 
to  note  that  the  very  significance  of  our  human  life 
depends  upon  the  fact  that  we  are  always  under- 
taking to  adjust  ourselves  to  a  life,  and  to  a  type  of 
experience,  which,  concrete  and  real  though  it  is, 
is  never  reducible  to  the  terms  of  any  purely  human 
experience.  Were  this  not  the  case;  were  not  every 
significant  assertion  concerned  with  a  type  and  form 
of  life  and  of  experience  which  no  man  ever  gets; 
were  not  all  our  actions  guided  by  ideas  and  ideals 
that  can  never  be  adequately  expressed  in  simply  hu- 
man terms;  were  all  this,  I  say,  not  the  case,  then — 
neither  science  nor  religion,  neither  worldly  prudence 
nor  ideal  morality,  neither  natural  common-sense 
nor  the  loftiest  forms  of  spirituality  would  be  pos- 
sible. Here  I  can  only  repeat,  but  now  with  ex- 
plicit reference  to  the  active  aspect  of  our  opinions 


148  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

and  of  our  experience,  the  comments  that  I  made  in 
my  former  lecture.  Man  as  he  is  experiences  from 
moment  to  moment.  What  is  here  and  now,  not 
future  "workings,"  not  past  expectations,  but  the 
present — this  is  what  he  more  immediately  gets  and 
verifies.  These  momentary  experiences  of  his,  these 
pains  and  these  data  of  perception,  are  what  he  can 
personally  verify  for  himself.  And  to  this  life  in 
each  instant  he  is  confined,  so  far  as  his  own  personal 
and  individual  experience  is  concerned.  But  man 
means,  he  intends,  he  estimates,  he  judges  life,  not  as 
it  appears  to  him  at  any  one  instant,  but  as  "in  the 
long  run,"  or  "for  the  common-sense  of  mankind," 
or  as  "from  a  rational  point  of  view"  he  holds  that 
it  ought  to  be  judged.  Now  I  again  insist — there  is 
not  one  of  us  who  ever  directly  observes  in  his  own 
person  w^hat  it  is  which  even  the  so-called  common- 
sense  of  mankind  is  said  to  verify  and  find  to  be 
true.  The  experience  which  "mankind"  is  said  to 
possess  is  not  merely  the  mere  collection  of  your 
momentary  feelings  or  perceptions,  or  mine.  It  is  a 
conceived  integral  experience  which  no  individual 
man  ever  gets  before  him.  When  we  conceive  it, 
we  first  treat  it  as  something  impersonal.  If  it  is 
personal,  the  person  who  gets  it  before  him  is  greater 
than  any  man.  Yet  unless  some  such  integral  ex- 
perience is  as  concrete  and  genuine  a  fact,  as  real  a 
life,  as  any  life  that  you  and  I  from  moment  to 
moment  lead,  then  all  so-called  "common-sense" 
is  meaningless.    But  if  such  an  integral  experience 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  149 

is  real,  then  that  by  which  the  pragmatic  "workings" 
of  our  private  and  pergonal  opinions  are  to  be  tested 
and  are  tested  is  a  certain  integral  whole  of  life  in 
which  we  all  live  and  move  and  have  our  being, 
but  which  is  no  more  the  mere  heap  and  collection 
of  our  moments  of  fragmentary  experience,  and  of 
our  vicissitudes  of  shifting  moods,  than  a  symphony 
is  a  mere  collection  of  notes  on  paper,  or  of  scraped 
strings  and  quivering  tubes,  or  of  air  waves,  or  even 
of  the  deeds  of  separate  musicians. 

The  life,  then,  the  experience,  the  concrete  whole, 
wherein  our  assertions  have  their  workings,  with 
which  our  active  ideas  are  labouring  to  agree,  to  which 
our  will  endlessly  strives  to  adjust  itself,  in  which 
we  are  saved  or  lost,  is  a  life  whose  touch  with  our 
efforts  is  as  close  as  its  superiority  to  our  merely 
human  narrowness  is  concretely  and  actively  tri- 
umphant whenever  our  pettiness  gets  moulded  to  a 
higher  reasonableness.  And  unless  such  a  life  above 
our  individual  level  is  real,  our  human  efforts  have 
no  sense  whatever,  and  chaos  drowns  out  the  mean- 
ing of  the  pragmatists  and  of  the  idealists  alike. 
If  one  asks,  hoicever,  by  what  workings  our  significant 
assertions  propose  to  be  judged,  I  answer,  by  their 
workings  as  experienced  and  estimated  from  the  point 
of  view  of  such  a  larger  life,  as  conforming  to  its  icill, 
or  falling  short  thereof,  as  leading  toward  or  aicay 
from  our  salvation.  For  it  is  just  such  a  larger  life 
by  which  we  all  propose  and  intend  to  be  judged, 
whenever  we  make  our  active  appeal  to  life  take  the 


150  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

form  of  any  serious  assertion  whatever.  If  a  man 
proposes  to  let  his  ideas  be  tested  not  by  his  mo- 
mentary caprice,  and  not  by  any  momentary  datum 
of  experience,  but  by  "what  proves  to  be  their 
workings  in  the  long  run,"  then  already  he  is  ap- 
pealing to  an  essentially  superhuman  type  of  em- 
pirical test  and  estimate.  For  no  man  taken  as 
this  individual  ever  personally  experiences  "the 
long  run,"  that  is,  the  integral  course  and  meaning, 
the  right  estimate  and  working  of  a  long  series  of 
experiences  and  deeds.  For  a  man  individually  ob- 
serves now  this  moment  and  now  that — never  their 
presupposed  integration,  never  their  union  in  a  single 
whole  of  significant  life. 

If  a  man  says  that  the  workings  of  his  ideas  are 
to  be  tested  by  "scientific  experience,"  then  again 
he  appeals  not  to  the  verdict  of  any  human  observer, 
but  to  the  integrated  and  universalised  and  rela- 
tively impersonal  and  superpersonal  synthesis  of  the 
results  of  countless  observers. 

And  so,  whatever  you  regard  as  a  genuine  test  of 
the  workings  of  your  ideas  is  some  living  whole  of 
experience  above  the  level  of  any  one  of  our  indi- 
vidual human  lives.  To  this  whole  you  indeed  ac- 
tively appeal.  The  appeal  is  an  act  of  will.  And 
in  turn  you  regard  that  to  which  you  appeal  as 
an  experience  which  is  just  as  live  and  concrete  as 
your  own,  and  which  carries  out  its  own  will  in  that 
it  snubs  or  welcomes  your  efforts  with  a  will  as  hearty 
as  is  your  own.     For  what  estimates  your  deeds. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  151 

and  gives  them  their  meaning,  is  a  Hfe  as  genuine  as 
yours  and  an  activity  as  real  as  yours.  Pragma- 
tism is  perfectly  justified  in  regarding  the  whole 
process  as  no  mere  contemplation,  no  merely  restful 
or  static  conformity  of  passive  idea  to  motionless 
insight,  but,  on  the  contrary,  as  a  significant  inter- 
action of  life  with  life  and  of  will  with  will.  But  the 
more  vital  the  process,  the  more  pragmatic  the 
test  of  our  active  opinions  through  the  conformity 
or  non-conformity  of  their  purposes  to  the  Hfe 
wherein  we  dwell  and  have  our  being,  the  more 
vital  becomes  the  fact  that,  whether  we  are  saved 
or  lost,  we  belong  to  the  world's  life,  and  are  part 
thereof,  while,  unless  this  life  is  more  than  merely 
human  in  its  rational  wealth  of  concrete  meaning, 
we  mortals  have  no  meaning  whatever,  and  the  as- 
sertions of  common-sense  as  well  as  of  religion  lapse 
into  absurdity. 

VI 

In  order  fairly  to  estimate  aright  our  relation  to 
this  larger  life,  we  must  briefly  review  the  further 
thesis  upon  which  recent  pragmatism  lays  so  much 
stress — the  thesis  that,  since  the  truth  of  an  opinion 
consists  in  the  agreement  or  disagreement  of  its  em- 
pirical workings  with  their  anticipated  consequences, 
all  truth  is  both  temporal  and  relative  and  cannot 
be  either  eternal  or  absolute.  Let  me  then  say  a 
word  as  to  the  absoluteness  of  truth. 

The  thesis  of  pragmatism  as  to  the  active  nature 


152  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

and  the  practical  meaning  of  all  opinions  may  be 
illustrated  by  a  simile  that,  as  I  think,  well  brings 
out  the  sense  in  which,  as  I  hold,  pragmatism  itself 
is  a  true  doctrine.  Any  sincere  opinion  announces 
a  plan  of  action  whereby  we  are,  in  some  way,  to 
adjust  ourselves  for  some  purpose  to  a  real  object. 
That  is,  an  opinion  lays  dowTi,  in  some  form,  a  rule 
for  some  sort  of  conduct.  This  rule  is  of  course 
valid  only  for  one  who  has  some  specific  interest  in 
the  object  in  question.  For  you  can  guide  action 
only  by  appealing  to  the  will  of  the  one  whom  you 
guide.  This  is  the  pragmatist's  view  of  the  nature 
of  all  assertions  and  opinions.  And  so  far,  as  you 
already  know,  I  agree  with  the  pragmatist.  This 
account  is  correct. 

This  being  so,  we  can,  for  the  sake  of  a  simile, 
compare  any  definite  opinion  to  the  counsel  that  a 
coach  may  give  to  a  player  whom  he  is  directing. 
The  player  wants  to  "play  the  game."  He  there- 
fore accepts  its  rules,  and  has  his  interests  in  what 
the  pragmatists  call  "the  concrete  situation."  The 
player,  at  any  point  in  his  training  or  in  his  activi- 
ties as  a  player,  may  also  accept  the  coach's  guidance, 
and  put  himself  under  the  coach's  directions.  If, 
hereupon,  the  player  acts  in  accordance  with  what 
the  coach  ordains,  the  coach's  directions  have 
"workings."  Their  "workings"  are  in  so  far  the 
deeds  of  the  player.  These  deeds,  if  the  issues  of 
the  game  are  sharply  defined,  are  what  we  may  call 
hits  or  misses.     That  is,  each  one  of  them  either  is 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  153 

what,  for  the  purposes  of  the  game  and  the  player, 
it  ought  to  be,  or  else  it  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be. 
And  each  act  of  the  player  is  a  hit  or  a  miss  in  a 
perfectly  objective  sense,  as  a  real  deed  belonging 
to  a  world  whose  relations  are  determined  by  the 
rules  and  events  of  the  game  and  by  the  purposes 
of  the  whole  body  of  players. 

Applying  the  simile  to  the  case  of  assertions,  we 
may  say:  An  assertion  is  an  act  whereby  our  deeds 
are  provided  with  a  sort  of  coaching.  Life  itself  is 
our  game.  Opinions  coach  the  active  will  as  to  how 
to  do  its  deed.  If  the  opinion  is  definite  enough, 
and  if  the  active  will  obeys  the  coach,  the  opinion 
has  "workings."  These  workings  are  our  intelli- 
gent deeds,  which  translate  our  opinions  into  new 
life.  If  our  purposes  are  definite  enough,  and  if  the 
issues  of  life  are  for  us  sharply  defined,  these  deeds 
are,  with  reference  to  our  purposes,  either  hits  or 
misses,  either  successful  or  unsuccessful  acts,  either 
steps  toward  winning  or  steps  toward  failure.  All 
this  is  surely  concrete  enough.  And,  in  real  life, 
this  account  applies  equally  to  the  practical  situa- 
tions of  the  workshop  or  of  the  market-place,  and 
to  the  ideas  and  deeds  of  a  religious  man  seeking 
salvation. 

But  now  one  of  the  central  facts  about  life  is  that 
every  deed  once  done  is  ipso  facto  irrevocable. 
That  is,  at  any  moment  you  perform  a  given  deed 
or  you  do  not.  If  you  perform  it,  it  is  done  and 
cannot  be  undone.     This  difference  between  what 


154  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

is  done  and  what  is  left  undone  is,  in  the  real  and 
empirical  world,  a  perfectly  absolute  difference.  The 
opportunity  for  a  given  individual  deed  returns  not; 
for  the  moment  when  that  individual  deed  can  be 
done  never  recurs.  Here  is  a  case  where  the  rational 
constitution  of  the  whole  universe  gets  into  definite 
relation  to  our  momentary  experience.  And  if  any 
one  wants  to  he  in  touch  with  the  "Absolute  " — with 
that  reality  which  the  pragmaiists  fancy  to  be  peculiarly 
remote  and  abstract — let  him  simply  do  any  individual 
deed  whatever  and  then  try  to  undo  that  deed.  Let 
the  experiment  teach  him  ivhat  one  means  by  calling 
reality  absolute.  Let  the  truths  which  that  experience 
teaches  any  rational  being  show  him  also  ivhat  is  meant 
by  absolute.truth. 

For  this  irrevocable  and  absolute  character  of  the 
deed,  when  once  done,  rationally  determines  an 
equally  irrevocable  character  about  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  any  act  of  judgment,  of  any  assertion  or 
opinion,  which  has  actually  called  in  a  concrete 
situation  for  a  given  deed,  and  which  therefore  has 
had  this  individual  deed  for  any  part  of  its  intended 
"workings."  Let  us  return  to  the  simile  of  the 
game.  Suppose  the  coach  to  counsel  a  given  deed 
of  the  player.  Suppose  the  player,  acting  on  the 
coach's  advice,  to  perform  that  deed,  to  make  that 
play.  Suppose  the  play  to  be  a  misplay.  The  play, 
once  made,  cannot  be  recalled.  It  stands,  if  the 
rules  of  the  game  require  it  so  to  stand,  on  the  score. 
If  it  stands  there,  then  just  tJmt  item  of  the  score 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  155 

caCh  never  be  changed  under  the  rules  of  the  game. 
The  score  is,  for  the  game,  absolute  and  irrevocable. 
If  the  coach  counselled  that  misplay,  his  counsel 
was  an  error.  And  just  as  the  player's  score  cannot 
be  changed  without  simply  abandoning  the  rules  of 
the  game,  so  too  the  coach's  record  as  a  blunderer 
is,  in  respect  of  this  one  bit  of  counsel,  unalterable. 
Analogous  results  hold  for  the  player's  successful 
hits  and  for  the  coaching  that  required  them.  All 
this  is  no  result  of  abstractions  or  of  bare  theory.  It 
is  the  result  of  having  the  will  to  play  the  game.  It 
is  the  absolute  truth  that  results  from  joining  defi- 
nite practical  issues. 

Returning  to  life,  we  must  say:  If  our  assertions 
have  a  determinate  meaning,  they  get  their  concrete 
workings  through  counselling  determinate  individual 
deeds.  Each  deed,  as  an  individual  act,  is  irrevoca- 
ble and  is  absolutely  what  it  is.  Our  deeds,  judged 
in  the  light  of  a  reasonable  survey  of  life — a  survey 
of  life  such  as  that  to  which,  when  we  form  our 
opinions,  and  when  we  act  on  our  opinions,  we  in- 
tend to  appeal — are,  for  a  determinate  purpose, 
either  hits  or  misses.  If  the  issues  of  life  in  ques- 
tion when  we  act  are  definite  enough,  our  deeds, 
under  the  rules  of  the  game  of  life,  cannot  avoid 
this  character  of  being  the  right  deeds  or  the  wrong 
deeds  for  the  purpose  in  question  and  in  view  of 
their  actual  place  in  real  life.  Whoever  so  acts  that 
his  deeds  are  done,  as  a  cant  phrase  has  it,  "with  a 
string  attached  to  them" — that  is,  whoever  regards 


156  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

his  deeds  as  having  only  relative  reality,  as  capable 
of  being  recalled  if  he  chooses,  is  not  acting  seri- 
ously. He  is  not,  as  they  say,  really  "playing  the 
game."  And,  as  a  fact,  he  is  trifling  with  absolute 
reahty.  He  is  not  only  not  serious;  he  views  real 
life  as  it  absolutely  is  not.  For  whatever  individual 
deed  he  actually  does  is  absolutely  irrevocable, 
whether  he  wants  to  recall  it  or  not.  Once  done, 
it  stands  eternally  on  the  world's  score. 

Now  I  insist,  whatever  assertion,  or  opinion,  re- 
garded as  itself  an  expression  of  one's  will,  has  for 
its  intended  working  one  of  these  irrevocable  deeds, 
is  in  so  far  forth  true,  as  the  individual  deed  which 
it  counsels  is  for  the  required  purpose  quite  irrevo- 
cably a  right  deed  when  estimated  with  reference 
to  this  purpose  and  to  the  life  into  whose  score  it 
enters.  That  is,  the  opinion  is  true  in  so  far  as 
the  working  which  it  counsels  is  a  deed  that  is 
in  fact  a  hit  in  the  chosen  game  of  life  under  the 
rules  of  that  game.  And  whatever  opinion  counsels 
a  deed  that,  as  the  working  of  this  opinion,  is  a  miss 
in  the  game  of  life,  is  a  false  opinion.  And,  so  I 
insist,  this  distinction  between  the  truth  and  falsity  of 
an  opinion  that  counsels  an  individual  deed  is  as 
absolute  and  irrevocable  as  is  the  place  of  the  deed  when 
once  done  on  the  score  of  the  game  of  life. 

Whoever  denies  this  position  simply  trifles  with 
the  very  nature  of  all  individual  facts  of  experience; 
trifles  also  with  life  and  with  his  own  decisive  will. 
Every  serious  man  does  his  daily  business  with  an 


Sources  of  Religious  InsigJit  157 

assurance  that,  since  his  deeds  are  irrevocable,  his 
guiding  opinions,  that  counsel  his  individual  deeds 
give,  in  an  equally  irrevocable  way,  right  or  wrong 
guidance,  precisely  in  so  far  as  they  get  their  work- 
ings concretely  presented  in  his  deeds.  And  this 
view  about  life  is  no  philosopher's  abstraction.  It 
is  the  only  genuinely  concrete  view.  Its  contra- 
diction is  not  merely  illogical,  but  practically  inane. 
I  cannot  do  a  deed  and  then  undo  it.  Therefore  I 
cannot  declare  it  to  be  for  a  determinate  purpose  the 
right  individual  deed  at  this  point  in  life,  and  then 
say  that  I  did  not  really  mean  that  counsel  to  be 
taken  as  simply  and  therefore  absolutely  true.  Ab- 
solute reality  (namely,  the  sort  of  reality  that  belongs 
to  irrevocable  deeds),  absolute  truth  (namely,  the 
sort  of  truth  that  belongs  to  those  opinions  which, 
for  a  given  purpose,  counsel  individual  deeds,  when 
the  deeds  in  fact  meet  the  purpose  for  which  they 
were  intended) — these  two  are  not  remote  affairs  in- 
vented by  philosophers  for  the  sake  of  "barren 
intellectualism."  Such  absolute  reality  and  absolute 
truth  are  the  most  concrete  and  practical  and  familiar 
of  matters.  The  pragmatist  who  denies  that  there 
is  any  absolute  truth  accessible  has  never  rightly 
considered  the  very  most  characteristic  feature  of 
the  reasonable  will,  namely,  that  it  is  always  coun- 
selling irrevocable  deeds,  and  therefore  is  always 
giving  counsel  that  is  for  its  own  determinate  pur- 
pose irrevocably  right  or  wrong  precisely  in  so  far 
as  it  is  definite  counsel. 


158  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

One  of  the  least  encouraging  features  of  recent 
discussion  is  the  prominence  and  popularity  of  those 
philosophical  opinions  which  are  always  proclaim- 
ing their  "concrete"  and  "practical"  character, 
while  ignoring  the  most  vital  and  concrete  feature  of 
all  voluntary  life.  For  the  very  essence  of  the  will 
is  that,  at  every  moment  of  action,  it  decides  abso- 
lute issues,  because  it  does  irrevocable  deeds,  and 
therefore,  if  intelligent  at  all,  is  guided  by  opinions 
that  are  as  absolutely  true  or  false  as  their  intended 
workings  are  irrevocable.  I  repeat :  If  you  want  to 
know  what  an  absolute  truth  is,  and  what  an  abso- 
lute falsity,  do  anything  whatever,  and  then  try  to 
undo  your  deed.  You  will  find  that  the  opinion 
which  should  counsel  you  to  regard  it  as  capable 
of  being  undone  gives  you  simply  and  absolutely 
false  coaching  as  to  any  game  of  life  whatever. 
Every  effort  to  undo  your  deed  is  a  blunder.  Every 
opinion  that  you  can  undo  is  a  trivial  and  abso- 
lutely false  absurdity.  Just  such  triviality  and  ab- 
surdity belong  to  the  thesis  that  absolute  truth  is  an 
unpractical  and  inaccessible  abstraction. 

VII 

If,  with  such  a  view  of  the  nature  of  absolute 
truth,  we  turn  back  to  estimate  the  sense  in  which 
our  opinions  about  the  world  as  a  whole  can  be  true 
or  false,  we  now  see  that  our  account  both  of  the 
insight  of  the  reason,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  world. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  159 

has  become  enriched  by  this  whole  analysis  of  the 
nature  of  opinion.  Opinions  about  the  universe  are 
counsels  as  to  how  to  adjust  your  deeds  to  the  purposes 
and  requirements  which  a  survey  of  the  whole  of  the 
life  whereto  your  life  belongs  shows  to  be  the  genuinely 
ratiorwl  purposes  and  requirements.  Every  such 
opinion  then,  whether  true  or  false,  is  an  effort  to 
adjust  your  mil  and  your  conduct  to  the  intents  of 
a  supreme  will  which  decides  values,  establishes  the 
rule  of  life,  estimates  purposes  in  the  light  of  com- 
plete insight.  That  is,  the  insight  to  which  your 
opinions  appeal  is  indeed  the  insight  of  a  real  being 
who  values,  estimates,  establishes,  decides,  as  con- 
cretely as  you  do,  and  who  is  therefore  not  only  all- 
wise,  but  possessed  of  a  will.  Your  search  for  sal- 
vation is  a  seeking  to  adjust  yourself  to  this  supreme 
will.  That  such  a  will  is  real  is  as  true  as  it  is  true 
that  any  opinion  whatever  which  you  can  form  with 
regard  to  the  real  world  is  either  true  or  false. 
However  ignorant  you  are,  you  are,  then,  in  con-| 
stant  touch  with  the  master  of  life;  for  you  are  con- 
stantly doing  irrevocable  deeds  whose  final  value, 
whose  actual  and  total  success  or  failure,  can  only 
be  real,  or  be  known,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
insight  that  faces  the  whole  of  real  life,  and  with 
reference  to  the  purposes  of  the  will  whose  expression 
is  the  entire  universe. 

If,  however,  j^ou  say,  with  the  pragmatists: 
"There  is  no  whole  world,  there  is  no  complete 
view,  there  is  no  will  that  wills  the  world;    for  all 


160  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

is  temporal,  and  time  flows,  and  novelties  constantly 
appear,  and  the  world  is  just  now  incomplete,  and 
therefore  there  is  nothing  eternal,"  then  my  answer 
is  perfectly  definite.  Of  course  there  is,  just  at  this 
point  of  time,  no  complete  world.  Of  course,  every 
new  deed  introduces  novelties  into  the  temporal 
world.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  even  to  assert  this 
is  to  assert  that  the  future,  and  in  fact  all  the  future, 
in  all  its  individual  detail,  belongs  to  reality,  and  forms 
part  of  its  wholeness.  To  admit  this  is  to  admit 
that  the  true  insight,  and  the  divine  will,  require, 
and  get,  the  endless  whole  of  future  time,  as  well  as  of 
past  time,  before  them  in  one,  not  timeless,  but  time- 
inclusive  survey,  which  embraces  the  whole  of  real  life. 
And  just  such  a  survey,  and  just  such  a  life,  not 
timeless,  but  time-inclusive,  constitute  the  eternal, 
which  is  real,  not  apart  from  time,  and  from  our 
lives,  but  in,  and  through  and  above  all  our  indi- 
vidual lives.  The  divine  will  wills  in  us  and  in  all 
this  world,  with  its  endless  past  and  its  endless 
future,  at  once.  The  divine  insight  is  not  lifeless. 
It  includes  and  surveys  all  Hfe.  All  is  temporal  in 
its  ceaseless  flow  and  in  its  sequence  of  individual 
deeds.     All  is  eternal  in  the  unity  of  its  meaning. 

To  assert  this,  I  insist,  is  not  to  deny  our  freedom 
and  our  initiative.  The  divine  will  wills  me,  pre- 
cisely in  so  far  as  it  wills  that,  in  each  of  my  indi- 
vidual deeds,  I  should  then  and  there  express  my 
own  unique,  and  in  so  far  free,  choice.  And  to  assert, 
as  I  do,  that  the  divine  will  wills  all  "at  once" 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  161 

is  not  to  assert  that  it  wills  all  at  any  one  moment  of 
time,  but  only  that  the  divine  will  is  expressed  in 
the  totality  of  its  deeds  that  are  done  in  all  moments 
of  time. 

But  this,  you  will  say,  is  still  philosophy,  not  what 
the  plain  man  needs  for  his  religion.  The  question 
remains:  Through  what  source  of  insight  are  we 
able  to  adjust  our  daily  lives  to  this  divine  wisdom 
and  to  this  divine  will?  I  answer:  Through  a  source 
of  insight  which  is  accessible  to  the  plainest  and 
simplest  reasonable  and  sincere  human  being.  Yet 
this  source  of  insight,  not  yet  expressly  named  in 
our  study,  includes  in  a  beautiful  and  spiritual  unity 
the  true  sense  of  our  individual  experience,  of  our 
social  experience,  of  our  reason,  and  of  our  will,  and 
gives  us  at  length  a  genuine  religion.  This  new 
source  we  are  to  study  in  our  next  lecture. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOYALTY 


THE  RELIGION  OF  LOYALTY 

Our  first  two  lectures  dealt  with  sources  of  religi- 
ous insight  well  known  to  all  of  you,  however  un- 
satisfactory you  may  have  found  them.  Our  third 
and  fourth  lectures  have  led  us  into  philosophical 
discussions  which  many  of  you  will  have  found 
neither  satisfactory  nor  familiar.  And  so,  in  im- 
agination, I  can  hear  you  declaring  that,  if  the 
foregoing  sources  of  insight  are  indeed  all  that  we 
have,  religious  truth  seems  still  very  far  away. 
"The  saints,"  I  hear  you  saying,  "may  comfort  us 
when  they  tell  us  of  their  personal  and  private  in- 
tuitions; but  they  perplex  us  with  the  conflicting 
variety  of  their  experiences.  The  social  enthusiasts 
undertake  to  show  us  the  way  to  salvation  through 
love;  but  the  world  of  men  in  which  they  bid  us 
seek  the  divine  is  a  world  that  is  by  nature  as  much 
in  need  of  salvation  as  we  ourselves  are.  The  sages 
point  to  the  starry  heaven  of  reason  which,  as  they 
insist,  overarches  us;  but  this  heaven  seems  cold; 
and  its  stars  appear  far  away  from  our  needy  life. 
And  if,  replying  to  this  very  objection,  and,  incident- 
ally, replying  also  to  the  doctrine  of  the  pragmatists, 

165 


166  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

somebody  insists  that  this  heavenly  world  of  the 
reason  is  also  an  expression  of  the  living  divine  will, 
we  still  remember  that  our  deepest  need  is  to  see 
how  the  divine  will  may  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven.  And  this  is  what  w^e  have  not  yet  learned 
to  see.  The  foregoing  sources  then  appear  to  leave 
us,  after  all,  with  no  vital  and  positive  religion." 


Thus  some  of  you  may  at  this  point  express  your 
discontent.  If  you  do,  I  find  this  discontent  justi- 
fied. If  the  foregoing  lectures  had  indeed  exhausted 
the  account  of  the  accessible  sources  of  religious  in- 
sight, we  should  be  hopeless  of  finding  any  religion 
that  could  satisfy  at  once  the  individual  need  for 
salvation,  the  social  requirement  that  we  should  seek 
for  salvation  through  union  with  our  brethren,  the 
rational  demand  for  a  coherent  view  of  truth,  and 
the  aim  of  the  will  to  conform  itself  to  the  laws  of 
the  master  of  life  with  whom  we  need  to  be  united. 
In  other  words,  all  of  the  foregoing  sources  of  in- 
sight, considered  as  separate  sources,  present  to  us 
problems  which  they  do  not  solve,  and  leave  the 
real  nature  of  the  saving  process  clouded  by  mists 
of  ignorance.  What  we  most  need  at  this  point  is 
some  source  of  insight  which  shall  show  how  to 
unite  the  lessons  that  the  preceding  sources  have 
furnished.  The  present  lecture  must  be  devoted  to 
an  account  of  such  a  source.    I  should  be  quite 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  167 

helpless  to  engage  in  this  new  undertaking  were  it 
not  for  the  fact  that  the  spiritual  life  of  humanity's 
best  servants  and  friends  has  long  since  shown  us 
how  to  overcome  the  difficulties  by  which  our 
present  inquiry  is,  at  this  point,  beset.  These 
friends  and  servants  of  mankind  have  used,  in  fact, 
that  source  of  insight  which  I  mentioned  in  the 
closing  words  of  the  last  lecture,  a  source  by  means 
of  which  the  results  and  the  moving  principles  of 
individual  experience,  of  social  experience,  of  reason, 
and  of  will  are  brought  into  a  certain  creative  unity 
to  which  the  noblest  spiritual  attainments  of  our 
world  are  due.  We  shall  return,  therefore,  in  this 
lecture,  from  speculation  to  life;  and  our  guides  will 
be,  not  the  philosophers,  nor  yet  the  geniuses  of  the 
inarticulate  religious  intuitions,  but  those  who,  while 
they  indeed  possess  intuitions  and  thoughts,  also 
actually  live  in  the  spirit. 

Nevertheless,  for  our  purpose,  the  foregoing 
method  of  approaching  our  topic  has  been,  I  hope, 
justified.  We  wish  to  know  the  sources  and  to  see 
what  each  is  worth.  We  must  therefore  consider 
each  source  in  its  distinction  from  the  others.  Then 
only  can  we  see  what  brings  them  together  in  the 
higher  religious  life.  We  must  reflect  where  religion 
itself  wins  its  way  without  reflection.  Had  we  be- 
gun our  study  where  this  lecture  begins,  with  the 
effort  to  understand  at  once  this  new  source  of  in- 
sight, we  should  have  been  less  able  than  we  now 
are  to  discern  the  motives  that  enter  into  its  con- 


168  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

stitution  and  to  appreciate  its  accomplishments. 
We  have  had  to  emphasise  diflBcuhies  in  order  to 
prepare  the  way  for  our  study  of  that  source  of  in- 
sight which,  in  the  history  of  humanity's  struggles 
toward  the  light,  has  best  enabled  men  to  triumph 
over  these  difficulties. 

This  new  source  has  come  into  the  lives  of  men  in 
intimate  connection  w^ith  their  efforts  to  solve  the 
problem  not  merely  of  religion,  in  our  present  sense 
of  the  word,  but  also  of  duty.  I  shall  therefore  first 
have  to  tell  you  how  the  problem  of  duty  is  dis- 
tinguished from  the  problem  of  religion.  Then  I 
shall  show  you  how  the  effort  to  solve  each  of  these 
problems  has  thrown  light  upon  the  other. 

Duty  and  religion  have,  in  the  minds  of  all  of 
you,  close  relations.  Both  have  to  do  with  our 
ideals,  with  our  needs,  with  the  conforming  of  our 
lives  to  our  ideals,  and  with  the  attainment  of  some 
sort  of  good.  Yet  you  also  well  know  that  these 
relations  of  duty  and  of  moraUty  on  the  one  hand, 
of  religion  and  of  salvation  on  the  other,  are  not 
relations  easy  to  define  with  entire  clearness.  Some 
men  in  our  age,  as  you  know,  tell  you  that  they  are 
unable,  in  their  present  state  of  mind,  to  get  much 
help  from  religion.  And  some  men  who  insist  that 
the  religious  problems  have  for  them  no  solution 
whatever,  are  ardently  and  sincerely  dutiful  in 
spirit.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who,  in 
their  own  minds,  are  so  sure  of  salvation  that  they 
actually  make  light  of  the  call  of  duty,  or  at  least 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  169 

see  little  that  is  saving  in  the  thought  of  duty.  In 
the  opinion  of  very  many,  no  effort  to  lead  a  dutiful 
life  can  lead  to  salvation  unless  some  sort  of  divine 
grace,  which  is  a  free  gift  from  above,  intervenes  to 
accomplish  the  saving  process.  INIeanwhile,  there 
are  those  who  declare  not  only  that  the  dutiful  life 
tends  of  itself  to  lead  to  salvation,  but  that  the  per- 
sistent doing  of  our  duty  is  precisely  the  whole  of 
what  constitutes  salvation. 

You  will  readily  see  that  the  plan  of  these  lectures 
forbids  any  direct  study  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  re- 
garding the  relation  of  faith  to  works,  of  divine 
grace  to  human  dutifulness.  The  mere  mention  of 
St.  Paul,  however,  side  by  side  with  the  reminder 
that,  at  many  times  in  history,  and  especially  to-day, 
there  are  those  for  whom,  despite  Paul's  teaching 
as  to  the  vanity  of  mere  works,  there  is  no  religion 
but  the  religion  of  duty,  will  serve  to  show  that 
serious  questions  are  here  involved,  and  that  the 
true  relations  between  religion  and  morality  are  by 
no  means  self-evident. 

Let  me  briefly  distinguish  between  the  religious 
interest  and  the  moral  interest.  Then  we  may  be 
able  to  recognise  how  closely  they  are  related,  and 
yet  how  far,  under  certain  conditions,  they  may 
drift  apart,  and  how  sharply  they  may  sometimes 
come  to  be  opposed. 


170  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 


II 

There  is  an  obvious  contrast  between  the  points 
of  view  from  which  moraUty  and  rehgion  consider 
the  problem  of  Ufe.  Whatever  may  be  your  views 
as  to  what  your  duty  is,  it  is  plain  that  the  moral 
interest  centres  about  this  idea  of  duty.  That  is, 
the  moral  interest  seeks  to  define  right  deeds  and 
to  insist  that  they  shall  be  done.  It  estimates  the 
Tightness  of  deeds  with  reference  to  some  ideal  of 
life.  But  however  it  conceives  this  ideal,  it  makes 
its  main  appeal  to  the  active  individual.  It  says: 
"Do  this."  The  religious  interest,  on  the  other 
hand,  centres  about  the  sense  of  need,  or,  if  it  is 
successful  in  finding  this  need  satisfied,  it  centres 
about  the  knowledge  of  that  which  has  delivered 
the  needy  from  their  danger.  It  appeals  for  help, 
or  waits  patiently  for  the  Lord,  or  rejoices  in  the 
presence  of  salvation.  It  therefore  may  assume  any 
one  of  many  different  attitudes  toward  the  problem 
of  duty.  It  may  seek  salvation  through  deeds,  or 
again  it  may  not,  in  the  minds  of  some  men,  appeal 
to  the  active  nature  in  any  vigorous  way  whatever. 
Some  religious  moods  are  passive,  contemplative, 
receptive,  adoring  rather  than  strenuous.  It  is 
therefore  quite  consistent  with  the  existence  of  a 
religious  interest  to  feel  suspicious  of  the  dutiful 
restlessness  of  many  ardent  souls. 

"They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  171 

Such  is  sometimes  the  comforting,  sometimes  the 
warning  word  that  seems  to  many  to  express  the 
reUgious  interest. 

This  general  contrast  between  the  two  interests 
assumes  many  special  forms  when  we  consider  how 
moralists — that  is,  teachers  who  especially  emphasise 
the  call  of  duty — may  stand  related  to  the  two  postu- 
lates upon  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  higher  religions 
base  their  appeal.  Religion,  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  depends  upon  asserting:  (1)  That  there  is 
some  one  highest  end  of  existence,  some  goal  of  life, 
some  chief  good;  and  (2)  That,  by  nature,  man  is 
in  great  danger  of  completely  failing  to  attain  this 
good,  so  that  he  needs  to  be  saved  from  this  danger. 

Now  the  first  of  these  two  postulates  religion  has 
frequently,  although  not  always,  shared  with  the 
moralists,  that  is,  with  those  who  devote  themselves 
to  teaching  us  how  to  act  rightly.  Aristotle,  for  in- 
stance, based  his  ethical  doctrine  (one  of  the  most 
influential  books  in  the  history  of  morals)  upon  the 
postulate  that  there  is  a  highest  good.  Many  oth- 
ers who  have  discussed  or  have  preached  morality, 
have  asserted  that  all  obligations  are  subject  to 
one  ultimate  obligation,  which  is  the  requirement  to 
act  with  reference  to  the  highest  good.  Yet  this 
agreement  as  to  the  highest  good  turns  out  to  be  not 
quite  universal  when  one  compares  the  opinions  of 
the  teachers  of  religion,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
moralists  on  the  other.  Popular  and  traditional 
morality  often  takes  the  form  of  a  little  hoard  of 


172  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

maxims  about  right  acts — maxims  whose  relations 
to  one  another,  and  to  any  one  highest  goal  of  life, 
remain  obscure.  Each  maxim  is  supposed  to  define 
a  duty.  Of  course  it  also  tells  us  how  to  win  some 
special  good  or  how  to  avoid  some  particular  evil. 
But  what  this  special  duty  has  to  do  with  winning 
any  one  highest  good  is  not  thus  made  explicit. 
And  since  many  who  make  traditional  morality 
prominent  in  their  minds  and  lives  are  unaware  of 
the  deeper  spirit  that  indeed,  as  I  hold,  underlies 
every  serious  endeavour,  these  persons  simply  re- 
main unconscious  that  their  morality  has  any  religi- 
ous motive  or  that  they  are  dealing  with  the  prob- 
lem of  salvation.  Even  some  professional  teachers 
of  duty  are  mere  legalists  who  do  not  succeed  in 
reducing  the  law  which  they  teach  to  any  rational 
unity.  And  for  such  people  the  postulate  which 
religion  makes  the  head  of  the  corner  is  rather  a 
stumbling-stone.  They  doubt  or  question  whether 
there  is  any  highest  good  whatever  or  any  pearl  of 
great  price.  Yet  they  illustrate  the  essential  fea- 
ture of  morality  by  insisting  that  certain  deeds  must 
be  done. 

But,  however  it  may  be  with  the  first  of  the  religi- 
ous postulates,  it  is  the  second  (the  postulate  that 
we  are  naturally  in  very  great  danger  of  missing  the 
true  goal  of  life)  which  leaves  open  the  greater  room 
for  differences  of  interest  as  between  the  religious 
teachers  and  the  teachers  of  duty.  Suppose  that 
we  are  in  agreement  in  holding  that  there  is  a  highest 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  173 

good.  Nevertheless,  the  question :  How  far  is  man 
naturally  in  danger  of  missing  this  supreme  goal?  is 
a  question  which,  since  we  are  all  fallible  mortals, 
leaves  room  for  many  varieties  of  opinion.  How  I 
myself  view  the  matter,  I  told  you  in  our  first  lecture. 
And  to  me  the  religious  need  seems  an  insistent  and 
clear  need.  But  many  moralists  are  partisans  of 
duty  as  a  substitute  for  religion.  And  they  are 
often  much  more  optimistic  regarding  human  nature 
than  I  am.  In  their  opinion  the  goal  can  be  reached, 
or  at  least  steadily  approached,  by  simple  dutiful- 
ness  in  conduct,  without  any  aid  from  other  motives 
that  should  tend  to  our  salvation. 

There  is,  then,  a  pearl  of  great  price.  But — so 
such  teachers  hold — why  sell  all  that  you  have  to 
buy  that  pearl,  when  by  nature  you  are  able  to  win 
it  through  a  reasonable  effort?  Dutifulness  is  the 
name  for  the  spirit  that  leads  to  such  an  effort. 
And  dutifulness,  say  these  teachers,  is  as  natural 
as  any  other  normal  function.  "No  general  catas- 
trophe threatens  our  destiny,"  they  insist.  "Why 
not  do  right?  That  is  in  your  own  personal  power 
and  is  sufficient  for  your  deepest  need.  You  need 
cry  out  for  no  aid  from  above.  You  can  be  saved  if 
you  choose.     There  is  no  dark  problem  of  salvation." 

To  such  optimists  the  intensely  religious  often 
respond  with  that  strange  horror  and,  repugnance 
which  only  very  close  agreement  can  make  possible. 
Near  spiritual  kin  can  war  together  with  a  bitterness 
that  mutual  strangers  cannot  share.     In  this  case, 


174  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

as  you  see,  the  goal  is  the  same  for  both  parties  to 
the  controversy.  Both  want  to  reach  some  highest 
good.  The  cheerful  optimists  simply  feel  sure  of 
being  able  to  reach,  through  action,  what  the  ear- 
nestly devout  are  passionately  seeking  by  the  aid  of 
faith.  Yet  each  side  may  regard  the  other  with  a 
deep  sense  of  sacred  aversion.  "Fanatic!"  cries  the 
partisan  of  duty  to  his  religious  brother.  "Mere 
moralist,"  retorts  the  other,  and  feels  that  no  ill 
name  could  carry  more  well-founded  opprobrium. 
The  issue  involved  is  indeed  both  delicate  and 
momentous. 

The  same  issue  may  become  only  graver  in  its 
intensity  when,  in  a  given  case,  a  religious  man  and 
a  moraUst  agree  as  to  both  of  the  main  postulates  of 
religion,  so  that  for  both  there  is  a  highest  good  to 
seek  and  a  great  peril  to  avoid.  For  now  the  ques- 
tion arises:  What  way  leads  to  salvation? 

Suppose  that  the  answer  to  this  question  seems, 
at  any  point  in  the  development  of  human  insight, 
simply  doubtful.  Suppose  mystery  overhangs  the 
further  path  that  lies  before  both  the  religious  in- 
quirer and  the  moralist.  In  such  a  case  the  relig- 
ious interest  meets  at  least  a  temporary  defeat. 
The  religious  inquirer  must  acknowledge  that  he 
is  baflfled.  But  just  this  defeat  of  the  religious  in- 
terest often  seems  to  be  the  moralist's  opportunity. 
"You  cannot  discover  your  needed  superhuman 
truths,"  he  then  says.  "You  cannot  touch  heaven. 
You  remain  but  a  man.     But  at  all  events  you  ca^ 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  175 

do  a  man's  work,  however  hard  that  work  is,  how- 
ever opposed  it  is  to  your  natural  sloth  and  degrada- 
tion, however  great  the  danger  of  perdition.  Per- 
haps nobody  knows  the  way  of  salvation.  But  a 
man  can  know  and  can  daily  do  each  day's  duty. 
He  does  not  know  how  to  attain  the  goal.  But  he 
knows  what  the  goal  is,  and  it  is  better  to  die  striv- 
ing for  the  goal  than  to  live  idly  gazing  up  into 
heaven."  In  such  a  case,  even  if  the  moralist  fully 
recognises  the  depth  of  our  need  of  salvation,  and 
the  greatness  of  the  danger,  still  the  strenuous  pur- 
suit of  duty  often  seems  to  him  to  be  a  necessary 
substitute  for  religion.  And  then  the  moralist  may 
regard  his  own  position  as  the  only  one  that  befits 
a  truth-loving  man;  and  the  religious  interests, 
which  appear  to  fix  the  attention  upon  remote  and 
hopeless  mysteries,  may  seem  to  him  hindrances  to 
the  devoted  moral  life.  Against  all  dangers  and 
doubts  he  hurls  his  "everlasting  No."  His  only 
solution  lies  in  strenuousness.  He  is  far  from  the 
Father's  house.  He  knows  not  even  whether  there 
is  any  father  or  any  home  of  the  spirit.  But  he 
proposes  to  face  the  truth  as  it  is,  and  to  die  as  a 
warrior  dies,  fighting  for  duty. 

But  of  course  quite  a  different  outcome  is,  for 
many  minds,  the  true  lesson  of  life.  The  religious 
man  may  come  to  feel  sure  that  the  way  of  salva- 
tion is  indeed  known  to  him;  but  it  may  seem  to 
him  a  way  that  is  opened  not  through  the  efforts  of 
moral  individuals,  but  only  through  the  workings 


176  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

of  some  divine  power  that,  of  its  own  moving,  elects 
to  save  mankind.  In  this  case  the  classic  doctrine 
that  grace  alone  saves,  and  that,  without  such  grace, 
works  are  but  vanity,  is,  in  one  form  or  another, 
emphasised  by  religious  teachers  in  their  contro- 
versies with  the  moralists.  The  history  of  Chris- 
tianity illustrates  several  types  of  doctrine  accord- 
ing to  which  divine  grace  is  necessary  to  salvation, 
so  that  mere  morality  not  only  cannot  save,  but  of 
itself  even  tends  to  insure  perdition.  And  in  the 
history  of  Northern  Buddhism  there  appear  teach- 
ings closely  analogous  to  these  evangelical  forms 
of  Christianity.  So  the  religious  interests  here  in 
I  question  are  very  human  and  wide-spread.  Who- 
ever thus  views  the  way  of  salvation  can  in  fact 
appeal  to  vast  bodies  of  religious  experience,  both 
individual  and  social,  to  support  his  opposition 
against  those  who  see  in  the  strenuous  life  the  only 
honest  mode  of  dealing  with  our  problem.  Whoever 
has  once  felt,  under  any  circumstances,  his  helpless- 
ness to  do  right  knows  what  such  religious  experi- 
ence of  the  need  of  grace  means.  Hence  it  is  easy 
to  see  how  the  earnest  followers  of  a  religion  may 
condemn  those  moralists  who  agree  with  them  both 
as  to  the  need  and  as  to  the  dangers  of  the  natural 
man.  In  fact  the  two  parties  may  condemn  each 
other  all  the  more  because  both  accept  the  two  pos- 
tulates upon  which  the  quest  for  salvation  is  based. 
Yet  even  these  are  not  the  only  forms  in  which 
this  tragic  conflict  amongst  brethren  often  appears. 


X 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  177 

I  must  mention  still  another  form.  Suppose  that, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  followers  of  some  religion,  not 
only  the  knowledge  of  the  way  of  salvation  is  open, 
but  also  the  attainment  of  the  goal,  the  entering  into 
rest,  the  fruition,  is,  for  the  saints  or  for  the  enlight- 
ened, an  actual  experience.  There  is,  then,  such  a 
thing  as  a  complete  T\dnning  of  the  highest  good.  So 
the  faithful  may  teach.  Hereupon  the  moralists  may 
adopt  the  phrase  which  James  frequently  used  in 
opposing  those  who  seemed  to  themselves  to  be  in 
actual  touch  with  some  absolute  Being.  The  only 
use  of  the  opinion  of  such  people,  James  in  sub- 
stance said,  is  that  it  gives  them  a  sort  of  "moral 
holiday."  For  James,  quite  erroneously,  as  I  think, 
supposed  that  whoever  believed  the  highest  good  to 
be  in  any  way  realised  in  the  actual  world,  was 
thereby  consciously  released  from  the  call  of  duty, 
and  need  only  say : 

God's  in  his  heaven, 

All's  right  with  the  world." 

I 

In  such  a  world,  namely,  there  would  be,  as 
James  supposed,  nothing  for  a  righteous  man  to  do. 
The  alternative  that  perhaps  the  only  way  whereby 
God  can  be  in  his  heaven,  or  all  right  with  the  world, 
is  the  way  that  essentially  includes  the  doing  of 
strenuous  deeds  by  righteous  men,  James  persist- 
ently ignored,  near  as  such  an  alternative  was  to 
the  spirit  of  his  own  pragmatism. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  true  that  there  have  indeed 


178  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

been,  amongst  the  religiously  minded,  many  who 
have  conceived  the  highest  good  merely  in  the  form 
of  some  restful  communion  with  the  master  of  life, 
merely  as  tranquillity  in  the  presence  of  God,  or 
merely  as  a  contemplative  delight  in  some  sort  of 
beauty.  And  it  is  true  that  some  of  these  have 
said:  "The  saints,  or  at  all  events  the  enlightened, 
even  in  the  present  life,  do  enter  into  this  rest. 
And  for  them  there  is  indeed  nothing  left  to  do." 
To  such,  of  course,  the  moralists  may  reply:  "You 
enlightened  ones  seem  to  think  yourselves  entitled 
to  a  'moral  holiday.'  We  strenuous  souls  reject 
your  idleness  as  unworthy  of  a  man.  Your  religion 
is  a  barren  sestheticism,  and  is  so  whether  it  takes 
the  outward  form  of  an  ascetic  and  unworldly  con- 
templation or  assumes  the  behaviour  of  a  company 
of  highly  cultivated  pleasure-seekers  who  delight 
in  art  merely  for  art's  sake  and  know  nothing  of 
duty."  To  such  believers  in  salvation  through  mere 
attainment  of  peace,  James's  criticism  rightly  ap- 
plies. In  these  lectures,  as  I  ask  you  to  note,  I 
have  never  defined  salvation  in  such  terms.  Sal- 
vation includes  triumph  and  peace,  but  peace  only 
in  and  through  the  power  of  the  spirit  and  the  life 
of  strenuous  activity. 

But  such  partisans  of  the  religion  of  spiritual  idle- 
ness as  I  have  mentioned  may  nevertheless  return 
the  moralist's  scorn  with  scorn.  If  they  are  advo- 
cates of  art  for  art's  sake,  of  mere  beauty  as  the 
highest  good,  they  find  the  restlessness  of  the  moral- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  179 

ists  hectic  or  barbarous.  If  they  are  mystical  quiet- 
ists,  they  regard  mere  morahsm  as  the  struggling  of 
a  soul  that  is  not  saved.  If  moral  endeavour  were 
the  last  word,  they  insist,  we  should  all  of  us  be  in 
the  Hades  of  Sisyphus.  And  no  doubt  their  scorn, 
even  if  ill-founded,  deserves  consideration.  For 
even  the  most  one-sided  emphasis  upon  any  aspect 
of  spiritual  truth  is  instructive,  if  only  your  eyes 
are  open. 

Such  are  some  of  the  wavs  in  which,  in  the  course 
of  human  history,  the  religiously  minded  and  the 
moralists  have  been  divided.  To  sum  up:  Certain 
of  the  lovers  of  religion  have,  upon  occasion,  con- 
demned moralists,  sometimes  as  legalists  who  do  not 
know  that  there  is  any  highest  good,  sometimes  as 
vain  optimists  who  ignore  the  danger  of  perdition, 
sometimes  as  despisers  of  divine  grace,  sometimes 
as  the  barbarous  troublers  of  spiritual  peace.  Cer- 
tain moralists,  in  their  turn,  and  according  as  they 
ignore  or  accept  the  postulates  upon  which  the 
religious  interest  is  based,  have  condemned  the  de- 
vout, sometimes  as  the  slanderers  of  our  healthy 
human  nature,  sometimes  as  seekers  in  the  void  for 
a  light  that  does  not  shine,  sometimes  as  slavish 
souls  who  hope  to  get  from  grace  gifts  that  they 
have  not  the  courage  to  earn  for  themselves,  some- 
times as  idlers  too  fond  of  "moral  holidays."  And, 
as  moralists,  their  common  cry  has  been,  ever  since 
the  times  of  Amos:  "Woe  unto  those  who  are  at 
ease  in  Zion." 


180  Smirces  of  Religious  Insight 

We  have  reviewed,  then,  some  of  these  conflicts. 
I  hope  that  you  see  upon  what  general  issue  they  all 
alike  turn.  The  moralists  are  essentially  the  par- 
tisans of  action.  They  seek  a  good.  But  their 
great  postulate  is  that  there  is  something  right  for 
us  to  do.  Therefore  the  issue  is  that  between  our 
need  of  something  not  ourselves  to  save  us  and  our 
power  to  win  a  greater  or  lesser  good  through  our 
own  moral  activity.  ^Vhoeve^  so  exclusively  em- 
phasises the  fact  that  the  divine  is  not  of  our  mak- 
ing, and  that  its  w^ays  are  not  our  ways,  and  that 
its  good  is  something  beyond  our  power  to  create 
or  attain  of  ourselves — whoever,  I  say,  so  exclu- 
sively emphasises  these  things  that  he  makes  light 
of  our  efforts  to  attain  the  good  somewhere  comes 
into  conflict  with  moralists.  Whoever,  as  moralist, 
so  exclusively  appeals  to  our  own  energies  that  he 
seems  to  hold  that  our  duty  would  be  just  as  much 
our  duty,  "If  we  were  alone  upon  the  earth  and 
the  gods  blind,"  somewhere  meets  the  religious 
opponent  who  mocks  his  pride,  or  despises  his  rest- 
lessness, or  laments  his  contempt  for  the  divine 
grace. 

Now  these  conflicts  are,  I  insist,  no  merely  specu- 
lative controversies.  They  play  a  great  part  in 
history.  They  have  darkened  countless  lives.  And 
they  grow  out  of  motives  deep  in  human  nature. 
What  is  here  most  important  for  us  is  that  they  point 
us  toward  our  new"  source  of  insight.  WTiat  a 
narrower  way  of  living  can  divide,  a  deeper  and 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  181 

truer  mode  of  living  can  unite.  Our  problem  as- 
sumes a  new  form.  Is  there  any  mode  of  living 
that  is  just  both  to  the  moral  and  to  the  religious 
motives?  Is  there  any  way  of  reconciling  our  need, 
of  a  grace  that  shall  save  with  the  call  of  the  moral  I 
life  that  we  shall  be  strenuous  in  the  pursuit  of  our 
duty? 

Let  us  here  approach  this  problem  from  the  side 
of  our  moral  consciousness.  For  at  this  point  we 
are  already  familiar  with  the  religious  need.  Does 
there  exist  amongst  men  a  type  of  morality  that, 
in  and  for  itself,  is  already  essentially  religious,  so 
that  it  knows  nothing  of  this  conflict  between  duty 
and  religion?  I  reply,  there  is  such  a  type  of  moral- 
ity. There  is  a  sort  of  consciousness  which  equally 
demands  of  those  whom  it  inspires,  spiritual  attain- 
ment and  strenuousness,  serenity  and  activity,  res- 
ignation and  vigour,  life  in  the  spirit  and  ceaseless 
enterprise  in  service.  Is  this  form  of  consciousness 
something  belonging  only  to  highly  and  intellec- 
tually cultivated  souls?  Is  it  the  fruit  of  ab- 
stract thinking  alone?  Is  it  the  peculiar  posses- 
sion of  the  philosophers?  Or,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  it  arise  solely  through  dumb  and  inarticulate 
intuitions?  Is  it  consistent  only  with  a  highly 
sensitive  and  mystical  temperament?  Does  it  be- 
long only  to  the  childhood  of  the  spirit?  Is  it  ex- 
clusively connected  with  the  belief  in  some  one 
creed?    To  all  these  questions  I  reply:   No. 

This  sort  of  consciousness  is  possessed  in  a  very 


182  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

high  degree  by  some  of  the  humblest  and  least 
erudite  of  mankind.  Those  in  whose  lives  it  is  a 
notable  feature  may  be  personally  known  only  to 
a  few  near  friends.  But  the  spirit  in  which  they 
live  is  the  most  precious  of  humanity's  possessions. 
And  such  people  may  be  found  belonging  to  all  the 
ages  in  which  we  can  discover  any  genuinely  humane 
activities,  and  to  all  those  peoples  that  have  been 
able  to  do  great  work,  and  to  all  the  faiths  that  con- 
tain any  recognisable  element  of  higher  religious 
significance. 

Ill 

I  can  best  show  you  what  I  mean  by  next  very 
briefly  reviewing  the  motives  upon  which  the  idea 
of  duty  itself  rests,  and  by  then  showing  to  what, 
upon  the  noblest  level  of  human  effort,  these  mo- 
tives lead. 

Our  moral  interests  have  a  development  which, 
in  all  its  higher  phases,  runs  at  least  parallel  to  the 
development  of  our  religious  interests,  even  in  cases 
where  the  two  sorts  of  interests  seem  to  clash.  The 
moral  problems  arise  through  certain  interactions 
that  take  place  between  our  individual  and  our 
social  experience.  The  reason  reviews  these  inter- 
actions and  takes  interest  in  unifying  our  plan  of 
life.  The  will  is  always,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  concerned  in  the  questions  that  here  arise. 
For  whatever  else  morality  is,  it  is  certain  that  your 
morality  has  to  do  with  your  conduct,  and  that 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  183 

moral  goodness  cannot  be  yours  unless  your  will 
itself  is  good.  Wealth  might  come  to  you  as  a  mere 
gift  of  fortune.  Pleasure  might  be  brought  to  you 
from  without,  so  far  as  you  have  the  mere  capacity 
for  pleasure.  The  same  might  appear  to  be  true 
even  in  case  of  salvation,  if,  indeed,  salvation  is 
wholly  due  to  saving  grace.  But  moral  goodness, 
if  you  can  get  it  at  all,  requires  your  active  co- 
operation. You  can  earn  it  only  in  case  you  do 
something  to  possess  it.  Its  motto  reads:  " Erwirb 
es  um  es  zu  besitzen." 

Therefore  the  moral  question  always  takes  the 
form  of  asking:  What  am  I  to  do?  The  first  con- 
tribution to  the  answer  is  furnished,  upon  all  levels 
of  our  self-consciousness,  by  our  individual  experi- 
ence. And  one  apparently  simple  teaching  that  we 
get  from  this  source  may  be  stated  in  a  maxim 
which  wayward  people  often  insist  upon,  but  which 
only  the  very  highest  type  of  morality  can  ration- 
ally interpret:  "I  am  to  do  what  I  choose,  in  case 
only  I  know  what  I  choose  and  am  able  to  do  it." 
From  this  point  of  view,  my  only  limitations,  at 
first  sight,  seem  to  be  those  set  for  me  by  my  phys- 
ical weakness.  There  are  many  things  that,  if  I 
had  the  power,  I  should  or  might  choose  to  do. 
But  since  I  frequently  cannot  accomplish  my  will, 
I  must  learn  to  limit  myself  to  what  I  can  carry  out. 
So  far,  I  say,  our  individual  experience,  if  taken  as 
our  sole  moral  guide,  seems  at  first  to  point  out  the 
way. 


184  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

But  this  first  teaching  of  our  individual  experi- 
ence is  by  no  means  so  simple  as  it  seems.  For  the 
question  arises:  What  is  it,  on  the  whole,  that  I 
choose  to  do?  And,  as  we  saw  very  early  in  these 
discussions,  each  of  us  is  by  nature  so  full  of  caprices 
and  of  various  aims,  that,  left  to  ourselves,  we  live 
not  only  narrowly  but  inconsistently.  Hence  we 
spend  much  of  our  lives  in  finding  out,  after  the  fact, 
that  what  we  chose  to  do  at  one  moment  of  our 
lives  has  hopelessly  thwarted  what  we  intended  to 
do  at  some  other  moment.  Self-will  then,  left  to 
itself,  means  self-defeat.  That  is  the  lesson  of  life. 
And  the  question:  What  is  it  that,  on  the  whole,  I 
would  choose  to  do  if  I  had  the  power?  is  a  question 
that  individual  experience,  taken  by  itself,  never 
answers  in  any  steadily  consistent  way.  Therefore, 
as  we  all  sooner  or  later  come  to  see,  one  of  our  most 
persistent  limitations  is  not  our  physical  weakness 
to  accomplish  what  we  choose,  but  our  incapacity, 
when  left  to  ourselves,  to  find  out  what  it  is  that  we 
propose  and  really  choose  to  do.  Therefore,  just 
because  individual  experience,  taken  by  itself,  never 
gives  steady  guidance,  we  have  to  look  elsewhere 
for  a  rule. 

The  question:  What  am  I  to  do?  is  never  in  prac- 
tice answered  without  consulting,  more  or  less  per- 
sistently, our  social  experience.  Being  what  we  are, 
naturally  gregarious,  imitative,  and,  when  trained, 
conventional  creatures,  who,  indeed,  often  fight  with 
our  kind,  but  who  also  love  our  kind,  who  not  only 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  185 

cannot  bear  to  be  too  much  alone,  but  are  simply 
helpless  when  wholly  isolated  from  our  fellows  (un- 
less we  have  already  learned  in  their  company  the 
very  arts  that  we  may  be  able  to  use  while  we  are 
alone),  we  can  give  no  answer  to  the  question: 
What  is  to  be  my  choice?  without  pretty  constantly 
consulting  our  social  interests.  And  these  interests 
are  indeed  plentiful  and  absorbing.  But  they  too 
are  naturally  conflicting.  And  so,  taken  as  they 
come,  they  give  us  no  rule  of  life. 

To  be  sure,  the  social  will  in  general  says  to  us: 
"Live  with  your  fellows,  for  you  cannot  do  with- 
out them.  Learn  from  them  how  to  live;  for  you 
have  to  live  more  or  less  in  their  way.  Imitate 
them,  co-operate  with  them,  at  least  enough  to  win 
such  ideas  as  will  help  you  to  know  what  you  want 
and  such  skill  as  will  make  you  best  able  to  accom- 
plish whatever,  in  view  of  your  social  training,  you 
are  led  to  choose.  Do  not  oppose  them  too  much, 
for  they  are  many,  and,  if  stirred  up  against  you, 
can  easily  destroy  you.  Conform,  then,  to  their 
will  enough  to  get  power  to  have  your  own  way." 
And  so  far  our  ordinary  social  will  gives  us  more  or 
less  consistent  counsel.  But  beyond  such  really 
rather  barren  advice  (the  counsel  of  an  inane  worldly 
prudence),  our  social  experience,  as  it  daily  comes 
to  us,  has  no  single  ideal  to  furnish,  no  actually 
universal  rules  to  lay  down.  For,  as  I  go  about  in 
social  relations,  sometimes  I  love  my  fellows  and 
sometimes  I  feel  antipathy  for  them.     Sometimes 


186  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

I  am  full  of  pity  for  their  woes  and  long  to  help 
them.  Sometimes  they  are  my  rivals;  and  I  then 
naturally  try  to  crush  them.  There  is  thus  no  one 
social  tendency  that,  as  it  comes  to  us  in  the  course 
of  our  ordinary  social  experience,  gives  us  sufficient 
guidance  to  tell  us  how  to  escape  self-defeat.  For 
my  love  and  pity  war  with  my  social  greed  and  with 
my  rivalries.     I  am  so  far  left  to  my  chaos. 

Thus,  then,  if  I  sum  up  my  position,  I  indeed  pro- 
pose to  do  what  I  choose,  in  so  far  as  I  am  able, 
and  in  so  far  as  I  can  find  out  what  it  is  that  I  choose 
and  can  avoid  thwarting  myself  by  my  own  choices. 
And  the  art  of  learning  how  to  choose,  and  what  to 
choose,  and  how  to  carry  out  my  will,  is  for  me, 
since  I  am  gregarious,  imitative,  and  convention- 
alised, a  social  art.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  no 
social  art  that  I  ordinarily  learn  is  sufficient  either 
to  teach  me  my  whole  purpose  in  life,  or  to  make  a 
consistent  self  of  me,  or  to  lead  me  out  of  that 
chaos  of  self-thwarting  efforts  wherein  so  many 
men  pass  their  lives. 

IV 

You  already  know,  from  our  former  discussion, 
how  our  reason  views  the  situation  thus  created  by 
this  chaos  of  social  and  of  individual  interests. 
How  real  and  how  confused  this  chaos  is,  the  daily 
record  of  certain  aspects  of  the  ordinary  social  life 
of  men  which  you  see  in  each  morning's  newspaper 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  187 

may  serve  to  illustrate.     These  princes  and  peoples, 
these  rebels  and  executioners,   these  strikers  and 
employers,  these  lovers  and  murderers,  these  trad- 
ers and  bankrupts,  these  who  seem  for  the  moment 
to  triumph  and  these  who  just  now  appear  to   be 
ground   under   the   opponent's   or  the   oppressor's 
heel,  what  arts  of  living  were  they  and  are  they  all 
following?    Well,  each  in  his  way  appears  to  have 
been  choosing  to  have  his  own  will ;  yet  each,  being 
a  social  creature,  had  learned  from  his  fellows  all  his 
vain  little  arts  of  life.     Each  loved  some  of  his 
fellows  and  was  the  rival  of  others.     Each  had  his 
standards  of  living,  standards  due  to  some  more  or 
less  accidental  and  unstable  union  of  all  the  motives 
thus  barely  suggested.     The  news  of  the  day  tells 
you  how  some  of  these  won  their  aims,  for  the 
moment,  while  others  were  thwarted.     What  I  ask 
you  to  note,  and  what  the  reason  of  every  man  in 
his  more  enlightened  moments  shows  him,  is  that 
each  of  these  who  at  any  moment  was  thwarted, 
precisely  in  so  far  as  he  had  any  will  of  his  own  at 
all,  was  defeated  not  only  by  his  fellows,  but  by 
himself.     For   this   special   will    of   his   was   some 
caprice  not  large  enough  to  meet  his  own  ends. 
The  career,  for  instance,  of  that  man  who  failed  in 
love  or  in  business  or  in  politics  is  wrecked.     His 
reputation  is  lost.     Well,  it  was  his  will,  as  a  social 
being,  to  aim  at  just  such  a  career  and  to  value 
just  that  sort  of  reputation.     Had  he  chosen  to  be 
a  hermit,  or  a  saint,  or  a  Stoic,  what  would  just  such 


188  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

a  career  and  such  a  reputation  have  been  to  him? 
How  could  he  have  lost  unless  he  had  sought? 
And  his  failure,  to  what  was  it  due?  No  doubt  to 
some  choice  of  his  own  quite  as  much  as  to  his 
rival's  skill.  He  wanted  freedom  to  carry  on  his 
own  speculations.  He  got  that  freedom  and  lost 
his  fortune.  He  wanted  to  be  free  to  choose  whom 
and  how  to  love.  He  had  his  way  and  defeated 
his  own  aim.  He  chose  to  follow  his  ambitions. 
They  have  led  him  where  he  is. 

Such  are  perfectly  reasonable  reflections  upon  the 
course  of  ordinary  social  conflicts.  They  suggest 
to  our  more  considerate  moments  the  very  sort  of 
reflection  which,  at  the  outset  of  the  present  dis- 
cussion, led  us  to  define  the  religious  ideal  of  sal- 
vation. Only  now  this  type  of  reflection  appears  as 
aiming  to  lead  us  to  some  practical  rule  for  guiding 
our  active  life.  For  our  attention  is  now  fixed,  not 
on  a  condition  to  be  called  salvation,  but  on  a  rule 
for  doing  something  in  accordance  with  our  own 
true  will.  This  rule  is,  negatively  stated,  the  fol- 
lowing: Do  not  seek,  either  in  your  individual  self 
as  you  are  or  in  your  social  experience  as  it  comes, 
for  the  whole  truth  either  about  what  your  own 
will  is  or  about  how  you  can  get  your  aims.  For 
if  you  confine  yourself  to  such  sources  of  moral  in- 
sight, you  will  go  on  thwarting  yourself  quite  as 
genuinely,  even  if  by  good  luck,  not  quite  as  scan- 
dalously, as  the  bankrupt  speculators  and  the  stri- 
kers and  the  outcast  oppressors,  and  the  politicians 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  189 

and  the  murderers,  and  the  deposed  monarchs  and 
the  defeated  revolutionists,  of  whom  you  read  in 
the  newspapers,  have  thwarted  both  their  individual 
and  their  social  will.  In  brief:  Put  not  your  trust 
in  caprices,  either  individual  or  social.  On  the  posi- 
tive side,  the  rule  here  in  question  is:  In  order  to 
find  out  what  is  your  true  choice,  and  how  you  can 
live  without  thwarting  yourself,  make  j'our  yrin- 
ciple  of  life  such  that  whatever  fortune  besets  you, 
you  can  inwardly  say:  "I  have  not  really  failed, 
for  I  have  acted  as  I  intended,  and  also  as  I  still 
intend  to  act,  and  have  had  my  will  whatever  the 
consequences  that  fortune  has  brought  to  me,  or 
however  my  momentary  mood  happens  to  change,  or 
however  this  or  that  social  caprice  leads  men  to 
love  or  to  despise  me."  Such  is  the  moral  insight 
that  the  first  use  of  your  reason,  in  thus  reviewing 
life,  suggests.  Or,  as  the  moral  common-sense  of 
the  wise  has  often  stated  the  rule  here  in  question: 
So  act  that,  upon  any  calm  review  of  the  sense  of 
your  individual  and  of  your  social  life,  you  shall 
never  have  ground  to  regret  the  principle  of  your 
action,  never  have  ground  to  say:  "By  choosing 
thus  I  thwarted  my  own  will." 

As  you  hear  these  statements,  I  hope  that,  re- 
duced to  their  very  lowest  terms :  "  So  act  as  never  to 
have  reason  to  regret  the  principle  of  your  action,"  they 
express  a  sort  of  counsel  for  life  which  is  not  strange 
to  common-sense,  even  if  it  has  received  an  abstract 
expression  in  the  famous  ethical  philosophy  of  Kant. 


190  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Only,  as  you  will  rightly  insist,  this  counsel  is  indeed 
a  seemingly  hopeless  counsel  of  perfection  when  it 
is  addressed  to  the  natural  man,  who  merely  has 
taken  his  instincts  as  he  found  them  developing, 
and  his  social  world  as  he  has  felt  it  fascinating  or 
disturbing  him,  and  who  has  then  stumbled  on, 
more  or  less  prudently  and  obstinately  trying  to 
find  out  what  it  really  is  that  he  wants  to  do  in  life. 
Such  a  man  will  cry  out:  "But  how  shall  I  discover 
a  principle  of  hfe  such  that,  if  I  hold  thereto,  I 
shall  never,  upon  any  reasonable  survey  of  life, 
regret  following  that  principle?" 


Here  at  length  let  life  itself  answer  the  question. 
As  I  was  preparing  these  very  words,  and  thinking 
what  new  instance  to  choose,  in  order  to  illustrate 
afresh  the  very  principle  that  I  have  in  mind,  the 
newspaper  of  the  day,  side  by  side  with  its  usual 
chronicle  of  unreason  and  of  disaster,  reported  the 
approaching  end  of  a  pubUc  servant.  This  public 
servant  was  Ida  Lewis,  who  for  fifty  years  was  the 
official  keeper  of  the  Lime  Rock  lighthouse  in  Narra- 
gansett  Bay.  She  had  been  known  for  more  than 
fifty  years  for  her  early  and  later  often-repeated 
heroism  as  a  life-saver.  And  now  she  was  at  last 
on  her  death-bed.  She  has  since  died.  I  know 
nothing  of  her  career  but  what  public  reports  have 
told.    So  far  as  her  duty  required  her  at  her  post, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  191 

she  kept  her  light  burning  through  all  the  nights  and 
the  storms  of  those  many  years.  She  saved,  in  all, 
upon  various  occasions,  eighteen  lives  of  those  who 
were  in  danger  from  wreck.  Her  occupation  thus 
had  its  perils.  It  had,  what  must  have  been 
much  harder  to  endure,  its  steady  call  upon  daily 
fidelity.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  an  obscure  and  hum- 
ble occupation;  although  by  chance,  as  well  as  by 
reason  of  her  skill  and  devotion,  this  particular  light- 
house keeper  was  privileged  to  become  in  a  sense 
famous.  But  certainly  it  could  have  been  no  part 
of  her  original  plan  to  pursue  a  famous  career. 
When  we  seek  public  prominence  we  do  not  select 
the  calling  of  the  lighthouse  keeper.  I  do  not  know 
how  she  came  to  find  this  calling.  She  may  not 
even  have  chosen  it.  But  she  certainly  chose  how 
to  live  her  life  when  she  had  found  it.  What  it 
means  for  the  world  to  have  such  lives  lived,  a  very 
little  thought  will  show  us.  WTiat  spirit  is  needed 
to  live  such  lives  as  they  should  be  lived,  we  seldom 
consider,  until  such  a  public  servant,  dying  with  the 
fruits  of  her  years  to  some  extent  known  to  the  pub- 
lic, reminds  us  of  our  debt  and  of  her  devotion. 

The  newspaper  in  which  I  read  of  this  case,  in 
commenting  upon  its  significance,  also  reported  (I 
do  not  know  how  accurately),  this  incident,  of  which 
some  of  you  may  know  more  than  I  do.  I  quote 
the  words: 

"Forty-one  years  ago,  Daniel  Williams,  keeper  of 
*  Boston  Evening  Transcript,  October  23,  1911. 


192  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  light  at  Little  Traverse  Bay,  in  Lake  Michigan, 
went  out  in  a  boat  for  the  rescue  of  a  ship's  crew  in 
distress,  and  did  not  come  back  alive.  For  three 
days  the  storm  continued.  But  his  sorrowing 
widow  did  not  forget  other  lives,  and  each  night 
climbed  the  winding  stairs  and  trimmed  the  lamp. 
This  duty  she  discharged  until  the  government 
learned  the  situation,  when  it  authorised  her  to 
continue.     And  she  is  still  at  her  post." 

Lighthouse  keepers  are  not  the  only  people  who 
live  thus.  There  are  countless  lights  kept  alive  in 
homes  where  want  or  weariness  or  stormy  sorrow 
have  long  since  and  often  entered,  and  have  again 
and  again  seemed  about  to  overwhelm,  but  where, 
after  many  years,  faithful  souls,  well  known  to  many 
of  you,  are,  despite  fortune,  still  at  their  post,  with 
the  light  burning. 

And  now,  I  ask  you.  What  is  the  spirit  which 
rules  such  lives?  It  is  a  spirit  which  is  familiar  in 
song  and  story;  for  men  always  love  to  tell  about 
it  when  they  meet  with  impressive  examples  of  its 
workings.  What  I  regret  is  that,  when  men  repeat 
such  songs  and  stories,  familiarity  breeds,  not  indeed 
contempt  (for  our  whole  nature  rejoices  to  think 
of  such  deeds),  but  a  certain  tendency  to  false  em- 
phasis. We  notice  the  dramatic  and  heroic  inci- 
dents of  such  lives,  and  are  charmed  with  the  pic- 
turesque or  with  the  thrilling  features  of  the  tale. 
And  so  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  dealing  mainly 
with  anecdotes  and  with  accidents.     We  fail  suffi- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  193 

clently  to  consider  that  back  of  the  exceptional  show 
of  heroism  there  has  to  be  the  personal  character, 
itself  the  result  of  years  of  devotion  and  of  training — 
the  character  that  has  made  itself  ready  for  these 
dramatic  but,  after  all,  not  supremely  significant 
opportunities.  Only  when  we  in  mind  run  over 
series  of  such  cases  do  we  see  that  we  are  dealing 
with  a  spirit  suited  not  only  to  great  occasions,  but 
to  every  moment  of  reasonable  life,  and  not  only  to 
any  one  or  two  callings,  but  to  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men. 

The  spirit  in  question  is  the  one  which  is  often 
well  illustrated  in  the  lives  of  warriors  who  willingly 
face  death  for  their  flag — if  only  they  face  death 
not  merely  as  brutes  may  also  face  it  (because  their 
fighting  blood  is  aroused),  but  as  reasonable  men 
face  death  who  clearly  see  what  conditions  make  it 
"man's  perdition  to  be  safe."  There  are  two  tests 
by  which  we  may  know  whether  the  warriors  really 
have  the  spirit  of  which  I  am  speaking,  namely,  the 
spirit  that  was  also,  and  quite  equally,  present  in 
the  widow  who,  in  all  the  agony  of  a  new  grief,  and 
through  the  storm  that  had  taken  away  her  hus- 
band, still  climbed  the  lonely  stairway  and  trimmed 
the  lamp  which  he  could  never  again  tend.  The 
first  test  that  the  warrior  and  the  lighthouse  tender 
are  moved  by  the  same  spirit  is  furnished  by  the  fact 
that  those  warriors  who  are  rightly  filled  with  this 
spirit  are  as  well  able  to  live  by  it  in  peace  as  in 
war;    are,  for  instance,  able  even  to  surrender  to 


194  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  foe,  when  fortune  and  duty  require  them  to  do 
so — to  surrender,  I  say,  with  the  same  calm  dignity 
and  unbroken  courage  that  Lee  showed  in  his  in- 
terview with  Grant  at  Appomattox,  and  that  in- 
spired him  in  the  years  of  defeat  and  of  new  toils 
through  which  he  had  still  to  live  after  the  war. 
That  is,  the  warrior,  if  rightly  inspired,  is  as  ready 
for  life  as  for  death,  is  as  ready  for  peace  as  for  war; 
and  despises  defeat  as  much  as  danger — fearing  only 
sloth  and  dishonour  and  abandonment  of  the  ser- 
vice. The  other  test  is  whether  the  warrior  is  ready 
to  recognise  and  to  honour,  with  clear  cordiality,  this 
same  spirit  when  it  is  manifested  in  another  calling, 
or  in  another  service,  and,  in  particular,  is  mani- 
fested by  his  enemy.  For  then  the  warrior  knows 
that  warfare  itself  is  only  the  accident  of  fortune, 
and  that  the  true  spirit  of  his  own  act  is  one  which 
could  be  manifested  without  regard  to  the  special  oc- 
casion that  has  required  him  to  face  death  just  here 
or  to  fight  on  this  side.  If  the  spirit  of  the  warrior 
bears  these  tests,  his  faithfulness  is  of  the  type  that 
could  be  shown  as  well  by  the  lonely  light-tender 
in  her  grief  as  by  the  hero  for  whom  glory  waits. 
And  again,  this  spirit  is  the  very  one  that  martyrs 
have  shown  when  they  died  for  their  faith;  that 
patient  mothers  and  fathers,  however  obscure  and 
humble,  show  when  they  toil,  in  true  devotion,  for 
their  homes;  that  lovers  mean  to  express  when 
they  utter  such  words  as  the  ones  which  we  earlier 
quoted  from  Mrs.   Browning.     And  lest  all  these 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  195 

instances  should  impress  you  with  the  idea  that  the 
spirit  in  question  has  to  do  only  with  brilliant  emo- 
tional colourings,  such  as  those  which  fill  our  imagi- 
nations when  we  think  of  war,  and  of  brave  deaths, 
and  of  heroic  triumph  over  grief,  and  of  lovers' 
vows,  let  me  turn  at  once  to  what  some  of  you  may 
think  to  be  the  other  extreme  of  hfe.  Let  me  say 
that,  to  my  mind,  the  calm  and  laborious  devotion 
to  a  science  which  has  made  possible  the  life-work 
of  a  Newton,  or  of  a  Maxwell,  or  of  a  Darwin  is 
still  another  example,  and  a  very  great  example,  of 
this  same  spirit — an  example  full  of  the  same  stren- 
uousness,  the  same  fascinated  love  of  an  idealised 
object,  and,  best  of  all,  full  of  the  willingness  to 
face  unknowTi  fortunes,  however  hard,  and  to  aban- 
don, when  that  is  necessary,  momentary  joys, 
however  dear,  in  a  pursuit  of  one  of  the  principal 
goods  which  humanity  needs — namely,  an  under- 
standing of  the  wonderful  world  in  which  we  mor- 
tals are  required  to  work  out  our  destiny.  It  is  not 
a  superficial  resemblance  that  the  lighthouse  tender 
and  the  scientific  man  both  seek  to  keep  and  to 
spread  light  for  the  guidance  of  men. 

The  lighthouse  tender,  the  mother,  the  warrior, 
the  patriot,  the  martyr,  the  true  lover,  the  scientific 
investigator — they  all  may  show,  I  insist,  this  same 
essential  spirit. 


"Patient  through  the  watches  long, 
Semng  most  with  none  to  see;" 


196  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

superior  to  fortune  because  something  that  is 
worthier  than  any  fortune  seems  to  call  them  to 
their  task.  Such  are  undismayed  in  defeat.  So 
Newi;on  was  undismayed  when  he  looked  for  the 
needed  confirmation  of  his  theory  in  the  motion 
of  the  moon  and  for  the  time  failed.  He  worked 
on  steadily,  without  any  effort  to  win  renown  by 
hasty  publication  of  possible  explanations,  until 
new  advances  of  science  showed  why  confirmation 
had  so  far  been  lacking  and  brought  him  what  he 
needed.  So  Lee  turned  to  the  new  life  after  the 
war.  So  the  widow  climbed  the  lonely  stairway, 
despite  her  lost  one,  and  because  of  her  lost  one. 
So  the  martyrs  faced  the  lions.  These  all  were  sus- 
tained through  long  toil,  or  bewildering  grief,  by  a 
spirit  that  tended  to  make  them  masters  of  their 
own  lives  and  to  bring  them  into  unity  with  the 
master  of  all  life. 

We  have  illustrated  the  spirit.  We  now  ask: 
What  is  the  principle  which  dominates  such  lives? 
Is  it  or  is  it  not  a  principle  such,  that  one  at  any 
time  wholly  devoted  to  it  could  thereafter,  upon  a 
reasonable  review  of  life,  wisely  regret  having  chosen 
to  live  thus?  If  it  is  not  such  a  principle,  if  on  the 
contrary  it  is  a  principle  such  that  any  reasonable 
view  of  life  approves  it,  let  us  know  what  it  is,  let 
us  detach  it  from  the  accidental  conditions  which 
at  once  adorn  and  disguise  it  for  our  imagination, 
let  us  read  it  so  as  to  see  how  it  applies  to  every  sort 
of  reasonable  life — and  then  we  shall  be  in  possession 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  197 

of  the  solution  of  our  moral  problem.  Then  we 
shall  know  what  it  is  that,  if  we  are  indeed  rational, 
we  reallv  choose  to  do  so  soon  as  we  learn  how  to 
live. 

VI 

If  we  consider  carefully  any  such  faithful  lives 
as  I  have  just  exemplified,  we  see  that,  however 
simple-minded  and  unreflective  some  of  the  people 
may  be  who  learn  to  live  in  this  way,  the  motives 
that  guide  them  are  such  as  will  bear  a  great  deal 
of  thoughtful  reflection. 

The  people  whom  I  have  in  mind,  and  of  whom 
such  instances  teach  us  something,  are,  in  the  first 
place,  individuals  of  considerable  wealth  and  strength 
of  personal  character.  They  certainly  are  resolute. 
They  have  a  will  of  their  own.  They  make  choices. 
And  so  the  contribution  of  their  individual  expe- 
rience to  their  moral  purpose  is  large.  It  would  be 
wrong  to  say,  as  some  do,  that  they  are  character- 
ised by  mere  "altruism,"  by  utter  " self-f orgetf ul- 
ness,"  by  "living  solely  for  others."  If  you  were 
on  a  wreck  in  a  storm,  and  the  lighthouse  keeper 
were  coming  out  to  save  you,  you  would  take  little 
comfort  in  the  belief,  if  you  had  such  a  belief,  that, 
since  he  was  a  man  who  had  always  "lived  for 
others,"  he  had  never  allowed  himself  the  selfish 
delight  of  being  fond  of  handling  a  boat  with  skill 
or  of  swimming  for  the  mere  love  of  the  water.  No, 
on  the  contrary,  you  would  rejoice  to  believe,  if  you 


198  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

could,  that  he  had  always  delighted  in  boating  and 
in  swimming,  and  was  justly  vain  of  his  prowess 
on  the  water.  The  more  of  a  self  he  had  delightedly 
or  with  a  just  pride  trained  on  the  water,  the  more 
of  a  self  he  might  have  to  save  you  with.  When 
we  are  in  desperate  need,  we  never  wish  beings  who, 
as  some  say,  "have  no  thought  of  self"  to  help  us 
in  our  plight.  We  want  robust  helpers  who  have 
been  trained  through  their  personal  fondness  for 
the  skill  and  the  prowess  that  they  can  now  show 
in  helping  us.  So  individual  self-development  be- 
longs of  necessity  to  the  people  whose  faithfulness 
we  are  to  prize  in  an  emergency.  And  if  people 
resolve  to  become  effectively  faithful  in  some  prac- 
tical service,  their  principle  of  action  includes  in- 
dividual self-development. 

In  the  second  place,  people  of  the  type  whom  I 
here  have  in  mind  have  strong  social  motives.  Their 
faithfulness  is  a  recognition  of  the  significance,  in 
their  eyes,  of  some  socially  important  call.  And 
this,  of  course,  is  too  obvious  a  fact  to  need  further 
mention. 

But  in  the  third  place,  these  people  are  guided  by 
a  motive  which  distinguishes  their  type  of  social 
consciousness  from  the  chance  and  fickle  interests 
in  this  or  that  form  of  personal  and  social  success 
which  I  exemplified  a  short  time  since.  A  peculiar 
grace  has  been  indeed  granted  to  them — a  free  gift, 
but  one  which  they  can  only  accept  by  being  ready 
to  earn  it — a  precious  treasure  that  they  cannot 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  199 

possess  without  loving  and  serving  the  life  that  has 
thus  endowed  them — a  talent  which  they  cannot 
hide,  but  must  employ  to  earn  new  usury — a  talent 
which  seems  to  them  not  to  belong  to  themselves, 
but  to  their  master,  who  will  require  it  of  them,  in- 
creased. This  grace,  this  gift,  is  what  may  be  called 
their  Cause.  Sometimes  it  appears  to  them  in 
winning  guise,  seen  in  the  depths  of  the  eyes  of  a 
beloved  one,  or  symbolised  by  a  flag,  or  expressed 
through  a  song.  Sometimes  they  think  of  it  more 
austerely,  and  name  it  "science,"  or  "the  service," 
or  "  the  truth . ' '  Sometimes  they  conceive  it  expressly 
as  a  religious  object,  and  call  it,  not  unwisely,  "  God's 
will."  But  however  they  conceive  it,  or  whatever 
name  they  give  to  it,  it  has  certain  features  by  which 
you  may  easily  know  it. 

The  Cause,  for  people  of  this  spirit,  is  never  one 
individual  person  alone,  even  if,  as  in  the  lover's 
case,  the  devoted  person  centres  it  about  the  self 
of  one  beloved.  For  even  the  lovers  know  that  they 
transfigure  the  beloved  being,  and  speak  of  their 
love  in  terms  that  could  not  be  true,  unless  that 
which  they  really  serve  were  much  more  than  any 
one  individual.  The  Cause  for  any  such  devoted 
servant  of  a  cause  as  we  have  been  describing  is 
some  conceived,  and  yet  also  real,  spiritual  unity  which 
links  many  individual  lives  in  one,  and  which  is  there- 
fore essentially  superhuman,  in  exactly  the  sense  in 
which  we  found  the  realities  of  the  world  of  the  reason 
to  he  superhuman.    Yet  the  cause  is  not,  on  that  ae- 


200  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

count,  any  mere  abstraction.  It  is  a  live  something: 
"My  home,"  "my  family,"  "my  country,"  "my  ser- 
vice," "mankind,"  "the  church,"  "my  art,"  "my 
Science,"  "the  cause  of  humanity,"  or,  once  more, 
"God's  will," — such  are  names  for  the  cause.  One 
thinks  of  all  these  objects  as  living  expressions  of 
what  perfectly  concrete  and  needy  people  want  and 
require.  But  one  also  thinks  of  the  cause  as  unifying 
many  individuals  in  its  service,  and  as  graciously  fur- 
nishing to  them  what  they  need,  namely,  the  oppor- 
tunity to  be  one  in  spirit.  The  cause,  then,  is  some- 
thing based  upon  human  needs,  and  inclusive  of 
human  efforts,  and  alive  with  all  the  warmth  of  hu- 
man consciousness  and  of  human  love  and  desire  and 
effort.  One  also  thinks  of  the  cause  as  superhuman 
in  the  scope,  the  wealth,  the  unity,  and  the  reasonable^ 
ness  of  its  purposes  and  of  its  accomplishments. 

Such  is  the  cause.  That  the  individual  loves  it 
is,  in  any  one  case,  due  to  the  chances  of  his  tem- 
perament and  of  his  development.  That  it  can  be 
conceived  and  served  is  a  matter  of  social  expe- 
rience. That  it  is  more  worthy  to  be  served  than 
are  any  passing  whims,  individual  or  social,  is  the 
insight  which  the  individual  gets  whenever  he  sur- 
veys his  life  in  its  wider  unities.  That  to  serve  it 
requires  creative  effort;  that  it  cannot  be  served 
except  by  positive  deeds  is  the  result  of  all  one's 
knowledge  of  it.  That  in  such  service  one  finds 
self-expression  even  in  and  through  self-surrender, 
and  is  more  of  a  self  even  because  one  gives  one's 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  201 

self,  is  the  daily  experience  of  all  who  have  found 
such  a  cause.  That  such  service  enables  one  to  face 
fortune  with  a  new  courage,  because,  whatever  hap- 
pens to  the  servant  of  the  cause,  he  is  seeking  not 
his  own  fortune,  but  that  of  the  cause,  and  has 
therefore  discounted  his  own  personal  defeats,  is 
the  result  of  the  whole  spirit  here  in  question. 

For  such  a  practical  attitude  toward  such  a  cause 
I  know  no  better  name  than  the  good  old  word 
Loyalty.  And  hereupon  we  are  ready  for  a  state- 
ment of  the  principle  which  dominates  loyal  lives. 
All  the  foregoing  cases  were  cases  of  loyalty.  In 
each  some  one  had  found  a  cause,  a  live  spiritual 
unity,  above  his  own  individual  level.  This  cause 
is  no  mere  heap  or  collection  of  other  human  beings; 
it  is  a  life  of  many  brethren  in  unity.  The  simplest 
statement  of  the  principle  of  the  loyal  person  was 
the  maxim:  "Be  loyal  to  your  cause."  Somewhat 
more  fully  stated  this  principle  would  read:  "De- 
vote your  whole  self  to  your  cause."  Such  a  principle 
does  not  mean  "Lose  yourself,"  or  "Abolish  your- 
self," or  even  simply  "Sacrifice  yourself."  It 
means:  "Be  as  rich  and  full  and  strong  a  self  as 
you  can,  and  then,  with  all  your  heart  and  your  soul 
and  your  mind  and  your  strength,  devote  yourself 
to  this  your  cause,  to  this  spiritual  unity  in  which 
individuals  may  be,  and  (when  they  are  loyal)  act- 
ually are,  united  in  a  life  whose  meaning  is  above 
the  separate  meanings  of  any  or  of  all  natural  hu- 
man beings." 


202  Sources  of  Religioiis  Insight 

Yet  even  thus  the  principle  which  actually  in- 
spires every  thoroughly  loyal  action  has  not  been 
fully  stated.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  the  warriors, 
despite  the  fact  that  their  duty  requires  them  to 
compass  if  they  can  the  defeat  of  their  foes,  best 
show  their  loyal  spirit  if  they  prize  the  loyalty  of 
their  foes  and  honour  loyalty  wherever  they  find  it. 
We  call  such  a  spirit  that  honours  loyalty  in  the  foe 
a  spirit  of  chivalry.  You  and  I  may  remember  that 
Lee  was  the  foe  of  that  Union  in  whose  triumph  we 
now  rejoice.  Yet  we  may  and  should  look  upon 
him  as,  in  his  own  personal  intent,  a  model  of  the 
spirit  of  true  loyalty;  for  he  gave  all  that  he  had 
and  was  to  what  he  found  to  be  his  cause.  Such 
an  insight  into  the  meaning  of  the  loyalty  of  the 
foe,  chivalry  requires.  Therefore,  the  true  spirit 
of  loyalty,  including,  as  is  reasonable,  this  spirit  of 
chivalry,  also  requires  us  to  state  the  principle  of 
loyalty  in  a  still  deeper  and  more  universal  form. 
The  true  principle  of  loyalty  is,  in  fact,  an  union  of 
two  principles.  The  first  is:  Be  loyal.  The  sec- 
ond is:  So  be  loyal,  that  is,  so  seek,  so  accept,  so  serve 
your  cause  that  thereby  the  loyalty  of  all  your  brethren 
throughout  all  tJie  world,  through  your  example,  through 
your  influence,  through  your  own  love  of  loyalty  wJiere- 
ever  you  find  it,  as  well  as  through  the  sort  of  loyalty 
which  you  exemplify  in  your  deeds,  shall  be  aided, 
furthered,  increased  so  far  as  in  you  lies. 

Can  this  principle  be  acted  out?     Can  it  direct 
life?     Is  it  a  barren  abstraction?     Let  the  life  and 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  203 

the  deed  of  the  lonely  lighthouse  keeper  give  the  re- 
ply. Who,  amongst  us,  whatever  his  own  cause, 
is  not  instructed  and  aided  in  his  loyalty  by  the 
faithful  deed  of  such  a  devoted  soul?  Such  people 
are  then,  in  truth,  not  loyal  vierely  to  their  own  pri- 
vate cause.  They  are  loyal  to  the  cause  of  all  loyal 
people.  For,  to  any  enlightened  survey  of  life,  all 
the  loyal,  even  when  chance  and  human  blindness 
force  them  at  any  moment  to  war  with  one  another, 
are,  in  fact,  spiritual  brethren.  They  have  a  com- 
mon cause — the  cause  of  furthering  universal  loy- 
alty through  their  own  choice  and  their  own  ser- 
vice. The  spirit  of  chivalry  simply  brings  this  fact 
to  mind.  The  loyal  are  inspired  by  the  loyal,  are 
sustained  by  them.  Every  one  of  them  finds  in  the 
loyal  his  kindred,  his  fellow-servants.  \Mioever  is 
concretely  loyal,  that  is,  whoever  wholly  gives  him- 
self to  some  cause  that  binds  many  human  souls  in 
one  superhuman  unity,  is  just  in  so  far  serving  the 
cause  not  only  of  all  mankind,  but  of  all  the  rational 
spiritual  world.  I  repeat  then:  The  true  principle 
of  all  the  loyal  is:  So  he  loyal  to  your  own  cause  as 
thereby  to  serve  the  advancement  of  the  cav^e  of  uni- 
versal loyalty. 

Now  of  the  principle  thus  formulated  I  assert  that 
it  is  a  principle  fit  to  be  made  the  basis  of  an  uni- 
versal moral  code.  There  is  no  duty,  there  is  no 
virtue  whose  warrant  and  whose  value  you  cannot 
deduce  from  this  one  principle.  Charity,  justice, 
fidelity,    decisiveness,    strenuousness,    truthfulness, 


204  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

eflBciency,  wise  self-assertion,  watchful  self-restraint, 
patience,  defiance  of  fortune,  resignation  in  defeat, 
your  daily  social  duties,  your  individual  self-develop- 
ment, your  personal  rights  and  dignity,  your  obe- 
dience to  the  calls  of  duty,  your  justified  self-sacri- 
fices, your  rational  pride  in  the  unique  moral  office 
to  which  you  have  individually  been  called — all 
these,  I  assert,  can  be  rightly  defined,  defended,  es- 
timated, and  put  into  practice  through  an  accurate 
understanding  and  development  of  the  principle  of 
loyalty  just  laid  down. 

Since  I  am,  indeed,  speaking  of  sources  of  insight, 
and  am  not  portraying  at  any  length  their  results, 
you  will  not  expect  of  me  a  deduction  of  such  a  moral 
code  here.  But  this  assertion  of  mine  is  no  mere 
boast.  I  have  repeatedly  endeavoured,  elsewhere, 
to  portray  loyalty  and  to  apply  its  principles  to  life. 
For  the  moment  it  suffices  to  ask  you  to  consider 
the  lives  of  the  loyal,  in  such  examples  as  I  have 
suggested  to  you,  and  to  try  for  yourselves  to  see 
what  they  teach.  To  help  you  in  such  a  consider- 
ation, I  may  here  simply  remind  you  that  when  one 
is  not  only  loyal  but  enlightened,  one  cannot  finally 
approve  or  accept  any  cause  or  any  mode  of  living 
that,  while  seeming  in  itself  to  be  a  cause  or  a  mode 
of  living  such  as  embodies  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  still 
depends  upon  or  involves  contempt  for  the  loyalty 
of  other  men,  or  a  disposition  to  prey  upon  their 
loyalty  and  to  deprive  them  of  any  cause  to  which 
they  can  be  loyal.    No  loyalty  that  lives  by  de- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  205 

stroying  the  loyalty  of  your  neighbour  is  just  to  its 
own  true  intent.  And  that  is  why  charity  and  jus- 
tice are  fruits  of  the  loyal  spirit.  And  that  is  why, 
if  your  cause  and  your  loyal  action  are  rightly  ac- 
cepted and  carried  out,  the  common  interests  of 
all  rational  beings  are  served  by  your  loyalty  pre- 
cisely in  so  far  as  your  powers  permit.  \Miatever 
your  special  cause  (and  your  special  personal  cause 
— your  love,  your  home,  or  your  calling — you  must 
have),  your  true  cause  is  the  spiritual  unity  of  all  tlie 
world  of  reasonable  beings.  This  cause  you  further, 
so  far  as  in  you  lies,  by  your  every  deed. 

And  that  also  is  why  the  principle  of  loyalty,  once 
rightly  defined  and  served  by  you — served  with  the 
whole  energy  and  power  of  your  personal  self — is  a 
principle  that,  upon  any  enlightened  survey  of  your 
life  you  can  never  regret  having  served.  This,  then, 
is  what  we  were  seeking — an  absolute  moral  prin- 
ciple, a  guide  for  all  action. 

But  even  this  is  not  the  whole  meaning  of  what 
the  spirit  of  loyalty  has  to  teach  you.  Your  cause, 
thus  concretely  and  yet  universally  defined,  is  some- 
thing of  which  you  can  always,  and  now  truthfully 
and  without  any  pathetic  fallacy,  say,  what  Brown- 
ing's lover  said  in  the  lyric  that  I  quoted  in  our 
second  lecture: 

"World,  how  it  walled  about 
Life  with  disgrace, 
Till  God's  own  smile  came  out 
That  was  thy  face." 


206  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

For  your  cause  can  only  be  revealed  to  you  through 
some  presence  that  first  teaches  you  to  love  this 
unity  of  the  spiritual  Hfe.     This  presence  will  come 
to  you  in  a  beloved  form,  as  something  human,  dear, 
vitally  fascinating.     It  may  be  a  person — a  face — 
or  a  living  community  of  human  beings  that  first 
reveals  it  to  you.    You  can,  indeed,  choose  it  as  your 
cause.    Your  will  is  needed.    Loyalty  is  no  mere 
sentiment.    It   is   the   wilHng   and   practical   and 
\i  thorough-going  devotion  of  a  self  to  a  cause.    But 
1  you  can  never  choose  your  cause  until  you  have  first 
^  found  it.  And  you  must  find  it  in  human  shape.  And 
you  must  love  it  before  you  can  choose  its  service. 
I      Tlierefore,  Junvever  far  you  go  in  loyalty,  you  will 
'  never  regard  your  loyalty  as  a  mere  morality.     It  loill 
,  also  he  in  essence  a  religion.     It  will  always  be  to  you 
a  finding  of  an  object  that  comes  to  you  from  with- 
out and  above,  as  divine  grace  has  always  been  said 
1  to  come.     Hence  loyalty  is  a  source  not  only  of 
^  moral  but  of  religious  insight.     The  spirit  of  true 
>  loyalty  is  of  its  very  essence  a  complete  synthesis  of 
\  the  moral  and  of  the  religious  interests.     The  cause 
is  a  religious  object.     It  finds  you  in  your  need.     It 
points  out  to  you  the  way  of  salvation.     Its  presence 
in  your  world  is  to  you  a  free  gift  from  the  realm  of 
the  spirit — a  gift  that  you  have  not  of  yourself,  but 
through  the  willingness  of  the  world  to  manifest  to 
you  the  way  of  salvation.    This  free  gift  first  com- 
pels your  love.    Then  you  freely  give  yourself  in 
return. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  207 

Therefore,  the  spirit  of  loyalty  completely  recon- 
ciles those  bitter  and  tragic  wrangles  between  the 
mere  moralists  and  the  partisans  of  divine  grace. 
It  supplies  in  its  unity  also  the  way  to  define,  in 
harmonious  fashion,  the  ideal  of  what  your  individ- 
ual experience  seeks  in  its  need,  of  what  your  social 
world,  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together, 
longs  for  as  our  common  salvation,  of  what  the  rea- 
son conceives  as  the  divine  unity  of  the  world's 
meaning,  of  what  the  rational  will  requires  you  to 
serve  as  God's  will.  Through  loyalty,  then,  not 
only  the  absolute  moral  insight,  but  the  absolute  re- 
ligious insight,  as  you  grow  in  grace  and  persist  in 
service,  may  be  and  will  be  gradually  and  truthfully 
revealed  to  you. 

For  loyalty,  though  justifying  no  "moral  holi- 
days," shows  you  the  will  of  the  spiritual  world,  the 
divine  will,  and  so  gives  you  rest  in  toil,  peace  in 
the  midst  of  care.  And  loyalty  also,  though  leaving 
you  in  no  mystic  trance,  displays  to  you  the  law  that 
holds  the  whole  rational  world  together;  though 
shoeing  you  the  divine  grace,  calls  upon  you  for  the 
strenuous  giving  of  your  whole  self  to  action;  though 
requiring  of  you  no  philosophical  training,  tells  you 
what  the  highest  reason  can  but  justify;  and,  though 
concerned  with  no  mere  signs  and  wonders,  shows 
you  the  gracious  and  eternal  miracle  of  a  spiritual 
realm  where,  whatever  fortunes  and  miracles  and 
divine  beings  there  may  be,  you,  in  so  far  as  you  are 
loyal,  are  and  are  to  be  always  at  home. 


208  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

And  all  this  is  true  because  the  spirit  of  loyalty 
at  once  expresses  your  own  personal  need  and  rea- 
son, and  defines  for  you  the  only  purpose  that  could 
be  justified  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  who  sur- 
veyed all  voluntary  and  rational  life.  This  is  the 
purpose  to  further  the  unity  of  whatever  spiritual 
life  you  can  influence,  and  to  do  this  by  your  every 
rational  deed,  precisely  in  so  far  as  your  powers  per- 
mit. This  is  a  law  for  all  rational  beings.  No 
angels  could  do  more  than  this. 

There  is  a  famous  word  that  Chaucer  put  into  the 
mouth  of  his  Griselda  at  the  moment  when  her  hus- 
band tried  her  patience  with  his  last  and  utmost 
cruelty.  That  word,  uttered  by  a  woman  to  a  mere 
individual  human  creature  who  happened  to  be  her 
husband,  seems  helplessly  pathetic  and  slavish 
enough.  Yet  Chaucer  himself  warns  us  that  the 
old  tale,  truly  Interpreted,  should  be  viewed  as  an 
allegory  of  the  deeper  relations  between  the  soul 
and  God.  Even  so,  to  many  of  our  leading  modern 
minds  the  allegory,  when  interpreted  in  this  way, 
may  seem  harsh  enough.  Mere  moralists  may  make 
light  of  it,  because  it  seems  opposed  to  the  dignity 
of  the  moral  spirit  of  individual  self-respect.  Only 
the  partisans  of  a  divine  grace,  administered  through 
inscrutable  divine  decrees,  would,  you  might  sup- 
pose, still  see  any  worth  in  so  cruel  an  allegory. 
Nevertheless,  this  judgment  of  the  allegory  is  false. 
Let  a  truly  loyal  being — our  lighthouse  keeper,  for 
instance — our  patriot  or  martyr,  let  Lee  or  Newton, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  209 

let  whoever  is  filled  with  the  right  spirit  of  loyalty — 
whoever,  through  the  light  that  he  trims,  Intends  to 
lighten  and  to  unify  so  much  of  the  spiritual  world 
as  he  can  ever  reach  by  his  deed — let  siwh  a  loyal 
being  utter  Griselda's  word.  Let  him  utter  it  as 
in  the  presence  of  the  master  of  life,  who  offers' to 
all  the  loyal  the  divine  grace  of  finding  themselves 
through  their  devotion  to  their  cause.  Let  him 
address  this  word 

"As  unto  one  that  hears 
A  cry  above  the  conquered  years." 

Let  him  utter  this  word  as  the  summary  and  con- 
fession of  his  whole  life  of  loyalty.  And  then  Gri- 
selda's word  is  no  longer  slavish.  It  is  full  of  the 
resolute  courage,  of  the  splendid  contempt  for  mere 
fortune,  of  the  unconquerable  spiritual  self-asser- 
tion, yes,  it  is  full  of  the  deathless  will,  which  are 
of  the  very  essence  of  loyalty,  and  which,  indeed, 
must  overcome  and,  in  the  eternal  realm,  do  over- 
come the  world. 

Griselda's  word  was  this: 

"But  certes,  Lord,  for  none  adversitie, 
To  dien  in  this  case  it  shall  not  be 
That  I  in  herte  and  minde  should  aye  repente, 
That  I  you  gave  my  soul  with  whole  intente." 

Whoever  thus  addresses  his  word,  not  to  a  human 
individual,  but  as  unto  the  master  of  Ufe,  and  then. 


210  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

sincerely  and  persistently  and  lovingly,  lives  that 
word  out  in  his  life,  has  solved  the  religious  paradox. 
From  out  the  lonely  and  darkened  depths  of  his 
personal  finitude,  from  out  the  chaos  of  his  social 
promptings  and  of  his  worldly  ambitions,  amid  all 
the  storms  of  fortune,  "midst  of  hell's  laughter  and 
noises  appalling,"  he  has  heard  the  voice  of  the 
Spirit.  He  has  heard,  and — however  unlearned — 
he  has  understood.  His  own  lamp  is  burning,  and 
through  his  deed  the  eternal  light  shines  in  the  dark- 
ness of  this  world. 


VI 

THE  RELIGIOUS  MISSION  OF  SORROW 


VI 

THE  RELIGIOUS  MISSION  OF  SORROW 

It  very  often  happens  to  us  that  to  reach  any- 
notable  result,  either  in  life  or  in  insight,  is  even 
thereby  to  introduce  ourselves  to  a  new  problem. 
In  the  present  state  of  the  undertaking  of  these  lec- 
tures such  is  our  experience.  The  religious  insight 
whose  source  is  the  loyal  spirit  was  our  topic  in  the 
foregoing  lecture.  If  my  own  view  is  correct,  this 
source  is  by  far  the  most  important  that  we  have  yet 
considered.  It  unites  the  spirit  and  the  meaning 
of  all  the  foregoing  sources.  Rightly  interpreted, 
it  points  the  way  to  a  true  salvation. 

Yet  the  very  last  words  of  our  sketch  of  the  fruits 
of  loyalty  were  of  necessity  grave  words.  Intend- 
ing to  show  through  what  spirit  man  escapes  from 
total  failure,  we  were  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
tragedies  which  still  beset  the  higher  life.  "Ad- 
versity"— poor  Griselda  faced  it  in  the  tale.  We 
left  the  loyal  spirit  appearing  to  us — as  it  does  ap- 
pear in  its  strongest  representatives,  able,  somehow, 
in  the  power  that  is  due  to  its  insight,  to  triumph 
over  fortune.     But  side  by  side  with  this  suggestion 

213 


214  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

of  the  nature  of  that  which  overcomes  the  world 
stood  the  inevitable  reminder  of  the  word:  "In 
this  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation." 

How  is  tribulation  related  to  religious  insight? 
That  is  our  present  problem.  It  has  been  forced 
upon  our  attention  by  the  study  of  the  place  and 
the  meaning  of  loyalty.  Some  understanding  of 
this  problem  is  necessary  to  any  further  compre- 
hension of  the  lessons  of  all  the  foregoing  sources  of 
insight,  and  is  of  peculiar  significance  for  any  defi- 
nition of  the  office  of  religion. 

To  nearly  all  of  us,  at  some  time  in  our  lives,  and 
to  many  of  us  at  all  times,  the  tragic  aspect  of  hu- 
man life  seems  to  be  a  profound  hindrance  to  re- 
ligious insight  of  any  stable  sort.  I  must  here  first 
bring  more  fully  to  your  minds  why  this  is  so — why 
the  existence  of  tragedy  in  human  existence  appears 
to  many  moods,  and  to  many  people,  destructive  of 
faith  in  any  religious  truth  and  a  barrier  against 
rational  assurance  regarding  the  ultimate  triumph 
of  anything  good.  Then  I  want  to  devote  the  rest 
of  this  lecture  to  showing  how  sorrow,  how  the  whole 
burden  of  human  tribulation,  has  been,  and  reason- 
ably may  be,  not  merely  a  barrier  in  the  way  of 
insight,  but  also  a  source  of  religious  insight.  And 
this  is  the  explanation  of  the  title  of  the  present 
lecture. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  215 


We  approach  our  problem  fully  mindful  of  the 
limitations  to  which  the  purpose  of  these  lectures 
confines  us.  The  problem  of  evil  has  many  meta- 
physical, theological,  moral,  and  common-sense  as- 
pects upon  which  I  can  say  nothing  whatever  in  the 
present  context.  Human  sorrow  appears  In  our 
pathway  in  these  lectures  as  a  topic  for  us  to  con- 
sider, first,  because  whatever  source  of  religious 
insight  we  have  thus  far  consulted  has  showTi  us 
man  struggling  with  some  sort  of  ill,  and,  secondly, 
because  there  are  aspects  of  this  very  struggle  which 
vnl\  provide  us  with  a  new  source  of  religious  in- 
sight, and  which  will  thus  tend  to  throw  new  light 
upon  the  meaning  of  all  the  other  sources.  A 
thorough-going  study  of  the  problem  of  evil  would 
require  of  us  a  complete  philosophy  not  only  of  re- 
ligion but  of  reality.  But  we  are  limiting  ourselves, 
in  these  discussions,  to  a  survey  of  certain  sources. 

The  reasons  why  the  existence  and  the  prominence 
of  evil  in  human  life  seem  to  all  of  us  at  some  times, 
and  to  many  of  us  at  all  times,  a  hindrance  to  the 
acceptance  of  any  religious  solution  of  the  problems 
of  life  are  familiar.  I  need  then  only  to  remind 
you  what  they  are. 

Without  going  into  any  subtleties  regarding  the 
definition  of  evil,  it  is  obvious  that  our  first  charac- 
teristic reaction  when  we  meet  with  what  we  take 


216  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

to  be  an  evil  is  an  efTort  to  get  rid  of  it,  to  shun  its 
presence,  or  to  remove  it  from  existence.  Pain, 
cold,  burning  heat,  disease,  starvation,  death,  our 
enemies,  our  dangers,  these  are  facts  that,  precisely 
so  far  as  we  find  them  evil,  we  face  with  the  deter- 
mination to  annul  altogether  their  evil  aspect. 

A  characteristic  result  of  this  tendency  appears 
in  the  fact  that  man,  who  of  all  animals  is  most 
clearly  aware  of  the  presence  of  evil  in  his  world,  is 
for  that  very  reason  not  only  an  ingenious  de\dser 
of  new  inventions  for  getting  good  things  and  for 
supplying  his  needs,  but  is  also  the  most  destructive 
of  animals.  He  wars  with  his  natural  surroundings, 
and  still  more  with  his  fellow-men,  in  ways  that 
show  how  the  instinctive  aversions  upon  which  his 
estimates  of  evil  are  founded  are  reinforced  by  the 
habits  which  he  forms  in  his  contests  with  ill  for- 
tune. Man  the  destroyer  of  evil  thus  appears,  in 
much  of  his  life,  as  a  destroyer  who  is  also  largely 
moved  by  a  love  of  destruction  for  its  own  sake. 
This  love  plays  a  great  part  in  the  formation  of  even 
very  high  levels  of  our  social  and  moral  conscious- 
ness. The  heroes  of  song  and  story,  and  often  of 
history  as  well,  are  fascinating  partly,  or  chiefly,  be- 
cause they  could  kill  and  did  so.  We  love  victory 
over  ill.  Killing  seems  to  involve  such  a  victory. 
So  we  love  killing,  at  least  in  the  hero  tales.  The 
result  is  often  a  certain  inconsistency.  The  gods 
offered  Achilles  the  choice  between  a  short  life  full 
of  the  glorious  slaying  of  enemies  and  a  long  life  of 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  217 

harmless  obscurity.  He  chose  the  short  life;  and 
therefore  he  is  to  be  remembered  forever.  For 
even  when  he  would  not  fight,  his  "destructive 
wrath  sent  the  souls  of  many  valiant  heroes  to  Hades, 
and  left  themselves  a  prey  to  the  dogs  and  birds  of 
the  air."  And  when  he  returned  to  battle,  what  be- 
came of  Hector?  The  song  of  the  Nibelungs  opens 
by  assuring  us  that  the  old  stories  tell  of  many  won- 
ders, and  of  heroes  worthy  of  praise  {vo7i  Helden 
lobebaeren) ,  and  of  great  labours  {von  grosser  Areheit). 
These  "great  labours"  consisted  mainly  in  the  slay- 
ing of  other  men.  And  this  slaying  was  obviously 
"worthy  of  praise";  for  it  gave  us  a  model  for  all 
our  own  struggle  w4th  evil.  As  for  the  heroes  of 
history,  of  course,  w^e  love  to  dwell  upon  their  con- 
structive labours.  But,  after  all,  what  sort  of  com- 
parison is  there  in  what  the  plain  man,  apart  from 
a  higher  enlightenment,  usually  calls  glory,  between 
Washington  and  Napoleon?  No  doubt  there  will 
always  be  admirers  of  Napoleon  who  will  think  of 
him  as  a  misunderstood  reformer  labouring  for  the 
building  up  of  an  ideal  Europe.  But  even  such  ad- 
mirers will  join  with  the  plain  man -in  dwelling,  with 
especial  fascination,  upon  the  Napoleon  of  Auster- 
litz.  And  they  w411  not  forget  even  Borodino.  No 
doubt  the  lovers  of  Washington  find  him  glorious. 
But  where,  in  his  career,  belongs  the  glory  of  having 
put  an  end  to  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  or  of  hav- 
ing destroyed  the  polity  of  the  Europe  of  the  old 
maps? 


218  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Man  the  destroyer  thus  glories  in  his  prowess, 
and  adores  the  heroes  who  were  the  ministers  of 
death.  And  since,  of  course,  his  warfare  is  always 
directed  against  something  that  he  takes  to  be  an 
evil,  the  principle  which  directs  his  glorious  con- 
flicts seems  to  be  one  easy  of  general  statement,  in- 
consistent as  some  of  the  reasonings  founded  upon 
it  seem  to  be.  This  principle  is:  "All  evil  ought 
to  be  destroyed.  There  ought  to  be  none.  It 
should  be  swept  out  of  existence." 

Of  course,  when  the  principle  of  the  warfare  with 
evil  is  thus  abstractly  stated,  it  does  not  tell  us  what 
we  are  to  regard  as  an  evil.  It  leaves  the  wise  es- 
timate of  good  and  evil  to  be  learned  through  a 
closer  study  of  the  facts  of  life.  No  doubt,  then, 
Achilles,  and  the  other  heroes  of  song  and  story, 
may  have  become  as  glorious  as  they  are  by  reason 
of  our  excessive  love  of  destruction  due  to  some 
imperfect  estimate  of  the  true  values  of  life.  And 
therefore  the  mere  statement  of  the  principle  leaves 
open  a  very  wide  range  for  difference  of  opinion  and 
for  inconsistency  of  view  as  to  what  it  is  that  ought 
to  be  destroyed.  The  natural  estimate  of  the  plain 
man,  when  he  loves  the  heroes  of  old,  seems  to  imply 
that  one  of  the  chief  ills  that  man  ought  to  destroy 
usually  takes  the  form  of  some  other  man.  And 
this  way  of  estimating  men  in  terms  of  their  suc- 
cess in  killing  other  men  has  its  obvious  inconsis- 
tencies. But,  after  all,  as  one  may  insist,  much  is 
gained  when  we  have  made  up  our  minds  as  to  what 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  219 

ought  to  be  done  with  evil,  whether  evil  is  incor- 
porated in  our  enemies,  in  our  pains,  or  in  our  sins. 
We  may  leave  to  advancing  civilisation,  or  perhaps 
to  some  triumph  of  religion,  the  correction  of  our 
excessive  fondness  for  the  destruction  of  human  life. 
What  is  essentially  important  is  that  it  is  part  of 
man's  mission  to  destroy  evil.  And  about  this  gen-  j 
eral  teaching  the  saints  and  the  warriors,  so  it 
seems,  may  well  agree. 

Religion,  it  may  be  said,  can  have  nothing  to  urge 
against  this  fundamental  axiom.  So  far  all  appears 
clear.  Evil  ought  to  be  driven  out  of  the  world. 
Common-sense  says  this.  Every  struggle  with  cli- 
mate or  with  disease  or  with  our  foes  is  carried  on 
in  this  spirit.  The  search  for  salvation  is  itself — so 
one  may  insist — simply  another  instance  of  this  de- 
structive conflict  with  impending  ills.  All  that  is 
most  elemental  in  our  hatreds  thus  agrees  with  what- 
ever is  loftiest  in  our  souls,  in  facing  evils  with  our 
"everlasting  No."  All  the  dijfferences  of  moral 
opinion  are  mere  differences  as  to  what  to  destroy. 
Man  is  always  the  destroyer  of  ill. 

II 

But  if  you  grant  the  general  principle  thus  stated, 
the  presence  of  evil  in  this  world,  in  the  forms  that 
we  all  recognise,  and  in  the  degree  of  importance 
that  it  attains  in  all  our  lives,  seems,  indeed,  a  very 
serious  hindrance  in  the  way  of  religious  insight. 


220  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

And  the  reason  is  plain.  Religion,  as  we  have  said, 
in  seeking  salvation,  seeks  some  form  of  communion 
with  the  master  of  life.  That  is,  it  seeks  to  come  into 
touch  with  a  power,  a  principle,  or  a  mind,  or  a  heart, 
that,  on  the  one  hand,  possesses,  or,  with  approval, 
surveys  or  controls  the  real  nature  of  things,  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  welcomes  us  in  our  con- 
flicts with  evil,  supports  our  efforts,  and  secures 
our  success.  I  have  made  no  effort,  in  these  lec- 
tures, to  define  a  theological  creed.  Such  a  creed 
forms  a  topic  in  which  I  take  great  interest  but 
which  lies  beyond  the  limitations  of  this  discourse. 
Yet  our  study  of  the  historical  relations  between  re- 
ligion and  morality,  our  earlier  analysis  of  the  re- 
ligious need,  have  shown  us  that  unless  you  are  able 
to  make  some  sort  of  effective  appeal  to  principles 
that  link  you  with  the  whole  nature  of  things,  your 
religious  need  must  remain  unsatisfied,  and  your 
last  word  will  have  to  take,  at  best,  the  form  of  a 
moral,  not  a  religious  doctrine.  Religion  does  not 
require  us  to  solve  all  mysteries;  but  it  does  require 
for  its  stability  some  assurance  that,  so  far  as  con- 
cerns our  need  of  salvation,  and  despite  the  dangers 
that  imperil  our  salvation,  those  that  are  with  us, 
when  we  are  rightly  enlightened,  are  more  than  those 
that  are  against  us. 

In  order  to  make  this  fact  yet  clearer,  let  us  sup- 
pose that  all  such  assurance  is  taken  away  from  us. 
Review  the  result.  Let  it  be  supposed  that  we  need 
salvation.     Let  it  be  granted  that,  as  we  naturally 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  221 

are,  In  our  blindness  and  narrowness,  and  in  the  ca- 
prices of  our  passions,  we  cannot  find  the  way  out 
unless  we  can  get  into  touch  with  some  spiritual 
unity  and  reasonable  life  such  as  the  loyal  man's 
cause  seems  to  reveal  to  him.  Let  it  be  further 
supposed,  however,  that  all  human  causes  are,  in 
their  way  and  time,  as  much  subject  to  chance  and 
to  the  capricious  blows  of  fortune  as  we  ourselves 
individually  are.  Let  it  be  imagined  that  the  cause 
of  causes,  the  unity  of  the  whole  spiritual  world,  is, 
in  fact,  a  mere  dream.  Let  the  insight  of  the  reason 
and  of  the  will,  which,  when  taken  in  their  unity, 
have  been  said  by  me  to  reveal  to  us  that  the  uni- 
verse is  in  its  essence  Spirit,  and  that  the  cause  of 
the  loyal  is  not  only  a  reality,  but  the  reality — let 
this  insight,  I  say,  be  regarded  as  an  illusion.  Let 
no  other  spiritual  view  of  reality  prove  probable. 
Then,  indeed,  we  shall  be  left  merely  with  ideals  of 
life  in  our  hands,  but  with  no  assurance  that  real 
life,  in  its  wholeness,  approves  or  furthers  these 
ideals.  Our  need  of  salvation  will  then,  to  be  sure, 
still  remain.  Our  definition  of  what  salvation  would 
be  if  it  should  become  ours  will  be  unchanged.  But, 
having  thus  abandoned  as  illusory  or  as  uncertain 
all  the  sources  of  insight  which  I  have  so  far  been 
defending,  we  shall  have  upon  our  hands  only  the 
moral  struggle  for  the  good  as  our  best  resource. 
We  shall  then  hope  for  no  assurance  of  salvation. 
We  shall  abandon  religion  to  the  realm  of  m\i;hical 
consolations,  and  shall  face  a  grim  world  with  only 


222  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

such  moral  courage  as  we  can  muster  for  the  uncer- 
tain conflict.  Our  loyalty  itself  will  lose  its  religious 
aspect.  For  the  objective  goodness  of  our  cause — 
the  divine  grace  which  its  presence  seems  to  offer  to 
our  life — will  no  longer  mean  anything  but  a  faint 
and  uncertain  hope,  which  we  shall  keep  or  not  ac- 
cording to  the  caprices  of  our  personal  resolutions. 
Such,  I  say,  would  be  the  outcome  of  rejecting  all 
sources  of  religious  insight  into  the  real  nature  of 
things. 

The  result,  in  the  case  now  supposed,  will  be  one 
which  any  honest  man  will  indeed  accept  if  he 
must,  but  which  no  one  can  regard  as  including  any 
satisfactory  religious  insight  whatever.  I  certainly 
do  not  here  present  these  considerations  as  in  them- 
selves any  arguments  for  religion,  or  as  in  themselves 
furnishing  support  for  our  previous  arguments  re- 
garding the  nature  and  the  merits  of  the  sources  of 
insight  which  we  have  been  reviewing.  The  case 
for  which  I  have  argued  in  the  foregoing  lectures 
must  indeed  stand  or  fall  solely  upon  its  own  merits. 
And  if  the  reason  and  the  will,  as  the  spirit  of  loyalty 
interprets  and  unifies  their  teachings,  do  not  really 
show  us  any  truth  about  the  whole  nature  of  things, 
I  would  not  for  a  moment  ask  to  have  their  teach- 
ings tolerated  merely  because,  without  such  teach- 
ings, we  should  lose  our  grounds  for  holding  to 
a  religious  interpretation  of  life.  If  we  mu^t  fall 
back  upon  mere  moral  resoluteness,  and  abandon 
any  assurance  as  to  the  religious  objects,  and  as  to 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  223 

the  way  and  the  attainment  of  salvation,  I,  for  one, 
am  quite  ready  to  accept  the  call  of  life,  and  to 
fight  on  for  a  good  end  so  long  as  I  can,  without 
seeking  for  religious  consolations  that  have  once 
been  shown  to  be  mythical.  But  I  have  indicated 
to  you,  in  general,  my  grounds  for  holding  that  our 
previous  sources  actually  do  give  us  an  insight  which 
is  not  only  moral  but  religious,  and  do  throw  light 
upon  our  relations  to  a  reason  which  moves  in  all 
things,  to  a  divine  will  which  expresses  itself  in  all 
the  universe,  and  to  a  genuine  revelation  of  its  pur- 
poses which  this  makes  of  itself  when  it  inspires  our 
loyalty.  My  present  purpose  is,  not  to  reinforce 
these  grounds  by  the  mere  threat  that  their  rejection 
would  involve  an  abandonment  of  any  well-grounded 
religious  assurance,  but  to  present  to  you  the  fact 
that  religion  is,  indeed,  a  search  for  a  really  divine 
foundation  for  the  saving  process. 

Religion  differs  from  morality  in  looking  beyond 
our  own  active  resoluteness  for  something — not  our- 
selves— that  gives  a  warrant,  founded  in  the  whole 
nature  of  things — a  warrant  for  holding  that  this 
resoluteness  will  succeed  and  will  bring  us  into 
union  with  that  which  saves. 

Hence  it  is,  indeed,  true  that  if  there  is  no  master 
of  life  with  whom  we  can  come  into  touch,  no  triumph 
of  the  good  in  the  universe,  no  real  source  of  salva- 
tion— religion  must  result  in  disappointment.  And 
then  our  only  recourse  must,  indeed,  be  the  moral 
will.    This  recourse  is  one  that,  as  we  have  seen, 


224  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

many  iii  our  time  are  quite  ready  to  accept.  And 
such,  in  my  own  opinion,  are  for  reasons  that  they  do 
not  themselves  admit  actually  well  on  their  way  to- 
ward real  salvation.  Only  it  is  useless  to  attribute 
to  them,  in  their  present  stage  of  conviction,  any 
conscious  and  assured  possession  of  religious  insight. 
To  sum  up,  then,  religion  demands  the  presence  of 
the  master  of  life  as  a  real  being,  and  depends  upon 
holding  that  the  good  triumphs. 

But  if  we  attempt  to  combine  the  two  assertions, 
"All  evil  ought  to  be  destroyed"  and  "In  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole  the  good  triumphs,"  and  hereupon 
to  face  the  facts  of  human  life  as  religion  finds  them, 
we  are  at  once  involved  in  familiar  perplexities. 
With  many  of  these  perplexities  the  limitations  of 
the  present  discussion,  as  already  explained,  forbid 
us  to  deal.  I  am  merely  trjang  to  show,  for  the 
moment,  why  the  presence  of  evil  in  our  lives  seems 
to  be  a  hindrance  in  the  way  of  religious  insight. 
And  it  is  enough  if  I  emphasise  at  this  point  what 
must  readily  come  to  the  consciousness  of  all  of 
you  when  you  consider  the  situation  in  which  our 
whole  argument  seems  now  to  have  placed  us. 

The  very  existence  of  the  religious  need  itself  pre- 
supposes not  only  the  presence,  but  the  usual  prev- 
alence of  very  great  evils  in  human  life.  For  unless 
man  is  in  great  danger  of  missing  the  pearl  of  great 
price,  he  stands  in  no  need  of  a  saving  process.  A 
religious  man  may  come  to  possess  an  acquired 
optimism — the  hard-won  result  of  the  religious  pro- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  225 

cess  which  seems  to  him  to  have  pointed  out  the 
way  of  salvation.  But  a  man  who  begins  with  the 
assurance  that  all  is  ordinarily  well  with  human  nat- 
ure is  precluded  from  religion,  in  our  sense  of  the 
word  religion,  by  his  very  type  of  optimism.  Such 
an  optimist  of  the  "  first  intention, "  such  a  believer 
that  in  the  main  it  is  well  with  human  nature,  can 
be,  as  we  have  seen,  a  moralist,  although  he  is  usually 
a  very  simple-minded  moralist,  as  unaware  of  the 
graver  moral  problems  as  he  is  cheerfully  indifferent 
to  the  hard  case  in  which  most  of  his  brethren  live. 
But  whoever  sees  the  deep  need  of  human  salva- 
tion, as  the  various  cynics  and  rebels  and  sages  and 
prophets  whom  we  cited  in  our  first  lecture  have  seen 
it,  has  begun  by  recognising  the  bitterness  of  human 
loss  and  defeat — the  gravity  of  the  evil  case  of  the 
natural  man.  Were  not  the  world  as  it  now  is 
very  evil,  what,  then,  were  the  call  for  religion?  Re- 
ligion takes  its  origin  in  our  sense  of  deep  need 
— in  other  words,  in  our  recognition  that  evil  has 
a  very  real  place  in  life.  "  Tempora  pessima" — 
"The  times  are  very  evil" — is  thus  no  phrase  of 
a  merely  mediaeval  type  of  world-hatred.  The  woes 
of  man  are  the  presupposed  basis  of  fact  upon  which 
the  search  for  salvation  rests. 

And  the  further  one  goes  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
sources  of  religious  insight,  the  more,  as  we  have 
ourselves  found,  does  one's  original  recognition  of 
the  ill  of  the  human  world  become  both  deepened 
and  varied.     From  the  solitude  of  one's  individual 


226  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

sorrows  one  goes  out  to  seek  for  religious  relief  in  the 
social  world,  only  to  find  how  much  more  manifold 
the  chaos  of  ordinary  social  life  is  than  is  the  con- 
flict of  one's  private  passions.  If  one  asks  guidance 
from  reason,  reason  appears  at  first  as  a  sort  of 
spirit  brooding  upon  the  face  of  the  depths  of  un- 
reason. When  loyalty  itself  is  created,  it  finds  it- 
self beset  by  adversities.  If  evil  drives  us  to  seek 
relief  in  religion,  religion  thus  teaches  us  to  know, 
better  and  better,  the  tragedy  of  life.  Its  first  word 
is,  thus,  about  evil  and  about  the  escape  from  evil. 
But  its  later  words  appear  to  have  been  a  persistent 
discourse  upon  our  tribulations. 

But  how  can  religion,  thus  presupposing  the  pres- 
ence of  evil  in  our  life,  and  illustrating  this  presence 
anew  at  every  step,  undertake  to  lead  us  to  any  as- 
surance of  the  triumph  of  a  good  principle  in  the 
real  world,  in  case,  as  seems  so  far  obvious,  such  a 
triumph  of  a  good  principle  would  mean  that  all 
evil  is  to  be  simply  destroyed  and  wiped  out  of 
existence? 

Briefly  restating  the  situation,  it  is  this:  If  the 
evils  of  human  life  are  indeed  but  transient  and 
superficial  incidents,  or  if — to  use  a  well-known  ex- 
treme form  of  statement — evil  is  an  "unreahty" 
altogether — then  religion  is  superfluous.  For  there 
is  no  need  of  salvation  unless  man's  ordinary  case 
is,  indeed,  very  really  a  hard  case,  that  is,  unless  evil 
is  a  reality,  and  a  deep-rooted  one.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  evil  is  thus  deep-rooted  in  the  very  condi- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  227 

tions  of  human  life  as  they  are,  and  if  it  persists 
upon  higher  levels  even  of  the  religious  life,  religion 
seems  in  danger  of  total  failure.  For  unless  good- 
ness is  somehow  at  the  real  heart  of  things — is,  so 
to  speak,  the  core  of  reality — the  hope  of  salvation 
is  a  dream,  and  religion  deceives  us.  But  goodness, 
by  the  hypothesis  that  we  are  just  now  considering, 
requires  that  evil  should  be  wholly  abolished.  How 
can  that  which  should  not  exist  at  all,  namely,  evil, 
be  In  such  wise  the  expression  of  the  real  nature  of 
things  that  on  the  one  hand  religion  is  needed  to 
save  us  from  evil,  and  yet  is  able  to  do  so  only  by 
bringing  us  to  know  that  the  real  nature  of  things 
is  good?  Here  is  our  problem.  And  it  is  a  hard 
one. 

In  brief,  as  you  may  say,  religion  must  take  its 
choice.  Either  the  evil  in  the  world  is  of  no  great 
importance,  and  then  religion  is  useless;  or  the 
need  of  salvation  is  great,  and  the  way  is  straight 
and  narrow;  and  then  evil  is  deeply  rooted  in  the 
very  nature  of  reality,  and  religion  seems  a  failure. 

HI 

I  believe  that  there  is  some  advantage  in  stating 
in  this  somewhat  crabbed  and  dialectical  fashion,  a 
problem  which  most  of  us  usually  approach  through 
much  more  direct  and  pathetic  experience.  One 
advantage  in  crabbedness  and  in  fondness  for  dialec- 
tic is  that  it  sometimes  tends  to  clear  away  the  clouds 


228  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

with  which  emotion  from  moment  to  moment  sur- 
rounds certain  great  problems  of  life.  As  I  said 
earlier,  in  speaking  of  the  oflBce  of  the  reason,  ab- 
stract ideas  are  but  means  to  an  end.  Their  end 
is  to  help  us  to  a  clear  and  rational  survey  of  the 
connections  of  things.  When  you  are  to  examine  the 
landscape  from  a  height,  in  order  to  obtain  a  wide 
prospect,  you  may  have  to  use  a  glass,  or  a  com- 
pass, or  some  other  instrument  of  abstraction,  in 
order  to  define  what  the  distance  tends  to  render 
obscure,  or  what  the  manifoldness  of  the  scenery 
surveyed  makes  it  hard  rightly  to  view  in  its  true 
relations.  And,  in  such  cases,  the  glass  or  the  com- 
pass is  but  an  auxiliary,  intended  to  help  in  the 
end  your  whole  outlook.  Now  the  world  of  good 
and  evil  is  a  world  of  wide  prospects,  of  vast  dis- 
tances, of  manifold  features.  A  bit  of  dialectics, 
using  abstract  and  one-sided  considerations  in  suc- 
cession, may  prepare  the  way  for  seeing  the  whole 
better. 

The  plain  man  well  knows  the  problem  that  I 
have  just  been  characterising.  He  knows  how  it 
may  enter  his  religious  life.  Only  he  does  not  usu- 
ally think  of  it  abstractly.  It  pierces  his  heart. 
Stunned  by  a  grief,  he  may  say:  "I  have  trusted 
God,  and  now  he  forsakes  me.  How  can  a  good 
God  permit  this  horror  in  my  life?  "  Yet  the  plain 
man,  if  religiously  minded,  also  knows  what  is  meant 
by  saying,  "Out  of  the  depths  have  I  cried."  And 
he  knows,  too,  that  part  of  the  preciousness  of  his 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  229 

very  idea  of  God  depends  upon  the  fact  that  there 
are  depths,  and  that  out  of  them  one  can  cry,  and 
that  God  is  precisely  a  being  who  somehow  hears 
the  cry  from  the  depths.  God,  "  pragmatically  view- 
ed," as  some  of  our  recent  teachers  express  the  mat- 
ter, is  thus  often  defined  for  the  plain  man's  religious 
experience  as  a  helper  in  trouble.  Were  there  no 
trouble,  there  would  be,  then,  it  would  seem,  no 
cry  of  the  soul  for  such  a  being,  and  very  possibly 
no  such  being  conceived  by  the  soul  that  now  cries. 
Yet  this  very  God — one  cries  to  him  because  he  is 
supposed  to  be  all-powerful,  and  to  do  all  things 
well,  and  therefore  to  be  a  very  present  help  in 
time  of  trouble.  All  this  seems  clear  enough  at  the 
time  when  one  is  on  the  way  up,  out  of  the  depths, 
or  when  one  begins  to  praise  God  in  the  Psalm- 
ist's words,  because,  as  one  now  says:  "He  hath 
planted  my  feet  upon  a  rock,  and  hath  established 
my  goings."  But  how  does  all  this  seem  at  the 
moment  when  one  suddenly  falls  into  the  pit  of 
sorrow,  and  when  one's  eyes  are  turned  downward; 
when  he  who  doeth  all  things  well  permits  the  ut-j 
most  treachery  of  fortune,  and  when  the  one  who' 
can  hear  every  cry  seems  deaf  to  one's  most  heart- 
rending pleadings?  The  familiar  explanation  that  all 
this  is  a  penalty  for  one's  sins  may  awaken  an  echo 
of  Job's  protest  in  the  mind  of  the  man  who  knows 
not  how  he  has  deserved  this  woe,  or  may  arouse  the 
deeper  and  now  consciously  dialectical  comments 
on  the  mystery  involved  in  the  fact  that  God  per- 


230  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

mits  sin.  "Why  was  I  made  thus  blind  and  sin- 
ful?" one  may  cry.  And  hereupon  religious  in- 
sight becomes,  indeed,  confused  enough,  and  may 
turn  for  relief  to  that  well-known  type  of  defiance 
which,  if  not  religious,  is  at  least  moral;  for  it  is  a 
protest  against  evil.  If  at  such  moments  God  is, 
indeed,  to  our  darkened  vision,  and,  for  us,  who 
wait  for  his  blessing,  as  if  he  were  sleeping  or  on 
a  journey,  one  can  at  least,  as  moral  agent,  utter 
this  protest  against  ill,  and  wonder  why  his  omnipo- 
tence does  not  make  it  effective.  One  thus  begins, 
as  it  were,  to  try  heroically  to  do  the  absent  God's 
work  for  him. 

All  these  are  familiar  experiences.  They  find  us, 
too  often,  unprepared.  They  find  us  when  emo- 
tion tends  to  cloud  every  insight.  They  illustrate  a 
certain  dialectical  process  which  belongs  to  all  hu- 
man life  and  which  plays  its  part  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  religion.  Perhaps  it  is  well  to  state  an 
aspect  of  this  dialectical  process  abstractly,  crab- 
bedly,  and  unemotionally,  as  we  have  just  done,  in 
order  that  we  may  make  ourselves  the  more  ready 
to  face  the  issue  when  life  exemplifies  it  with  crush- 
ing suddenness,  and  when 

"The  painful  ploughshare  of  passion 
Grinds  down  to  our  uttermost  rock." 

The  problem,  as  just  abstractly  stated,  is  this. 
Religion  seems  to  face  this  dilemma:  Either  there 
are  no  great  and  essential  ills  about  human  life; 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  231 

and  then  there  is  no  great  danger  of  perdition,  and 
no  great  need  of  salvation,  and  religion  has  no 
notable  office;  or  there  are  great  and  essential  ills, 
and  man's  life  is  in  bitter  need  of  salvation;  but  in 
that  case  evil  is  deeply  rooted  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  reality  from  which  we  have  sprung;  and 
therefore  religion  has  no  right  to  assure  us  of  com- 
munion with  a  real  master  of  life  who  is  able  to  do 
with  evil  what  not  only  ought  to  be  done  with  it, 
but  ought  always  to  have  been  done  with  it  by  any 
being  able  to  offer  man  any  genuine  salvation.  For 
(as  we  are  assuming)  what  ought  to  be  done,  yes, 
what  ought  to  have  been  done  with  evil  from  the 
beginning,  is  and  was  this:  To  banish  it  altogether 
from  existence. 

This,  I  say,  is,  when  abstractly  stated,  the 
dilemma  in  which  religion  seems  to  be  placed.  Of 
this  dilemma  the  countless  struggles  of  the  human 
soul  when,  in  the  spirit  of  some  practical  religion, 
it  seeks  for  salvation  and  faces  its  woes  are  ex- 
amples. These  struggles  are  infinitely  pathetic  and 
in  life  are  often  confusing  to  insight.  Is  there  any 
value  in  considering  this  abstract  statement  of  the 
principles  upon  which  this  dilemma  seems  to  be 
founded?  Possibly  there  is,  if  we  can  hereby  be 
led  also  to  consider — not  indeed,  in  this  place,  the 
problems  of  theology,  or  the  metaphysics  of  evil, 
but  a  new  source  of  insight. 


232  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 


IV 

This  new  source  of  insight  begins  to  come  to  us 
when  we  observe,  as  we  can  often  observe  if  we 
listen  with  closer  attention  to  the  voices  of  our  own 
hearts,  that  the  general  principle,  "  Evil  ought  sim- 
ply to  be  put  out  of  existence,"  does  not  express 
our  whole  attitude  toward  all  evils,  and  gives  only 
an  imperfect  account  either  of  our  more  common- 
place and  elemental  or  of  our  more  elevated,  heroic, 
and  reasonable  estimates  of  life. 

The  principle:  "Evil  ought  to  be  simply  abol- 
ished," is,  indeed,  one  that  we  unquestionably  ap- 
ply, in  our  ordinary  life,  to  a  vast  range  of  natural 
ills.  But  it  is  not  universal.  Let  us  first  indicate 
its  apparent  range.  Physical  pain,  when  suffi- 
ciently violent,  is  an  example  of  an  ill  that  appears 
to  us,  in  all  its  greater  manifestations,  plainly  in- 
tolerable. So  it  seems  to  us  to  illustrate  the  princi- 
ple that  "Evil  ought  to  be  put  out  of  existence." 
We  desire,  with  regard  to  it,  simply  its  abolition. 
The  same  is  true  of  what  one  may  call  unassimilated 
griefs  of  all  levels — the  shocks  of  calamity  at  the 
moment  when  they  first  strike,  the  anguish  of  loss 
or  of  disappointment  precisely  when  these  things 
are  new  to  us  and  appear  to  have  no  place  in  our 
life-plan.  These  are  typical  ills.  And  they  all  illus- 
trate ills  that  seem  to  us  to  be  worthy  only  of  de- 
struction.   The  magnitude  of  such  ills  as  factors  in 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  233 

the  individual  and  in  the  social  world  often  appears 
to  us  immeasurable.  Pestilence,  famine,  the  cruel- 
ties of  oppressors,  the  wrecks  of  innocent  human 
lives  by  cruel  fortunes — all  these  seem,  for  our  or- 
dinary estimates,  facts  that  we  can  in  no  wise  as- 
similate, justify,  or  reasonably  comprehend.  That 
is,  we  can  see,  in  the  single  case,  no  reason  why  such 
events  should  form  part  of  human  life — except  that 
so  it  indeed  is.  They  seem,  to  our  natural  under- 
standing, simply  opaque  data  of  experience,  to  be 
annulled  or  removed  if  we  can.  And  to  such  ills, 
from  our  human  point  of  view,  the  principle :  "  They 
ought  to  be  simply  driven  out  of  existence, "  is  nat- 
urally applied  without  limitation.  The  apparent 
range  of  this  principle  is  therefore,  indeed,  very 
wide. 

Now  it  forms  no  part  of  our  present  discourse  to 
consider  in  detail  the  possible  theological  or  meta- 
physical basis  for  a  possible  explanation  of  such  ills, 
I  have  elsewhere  written  too  much  and  too  often 
about  the  problem  of  evil  to  be  subject  to  the  accu- 
sation of  neglecting  the  pathos  and  the  tragedy  of 
these  massive  ills.  This,  however,  I  can  at  once 
say.  In  so  far  as  ills  appear  to  us  thus,  they  are, 
indeed,  no  sources  of  religious  insight.  On  the 
other  hand,  even  when  thus  viewed,  in  all  their 
blackness,  they  can  be,  and  are,  sources  of  moral 
enthusiasm  and  earnestness.  Man  the  destroyer, 
when,  awaking  to  the  presence  of  such  ills  in  his 
world,  he  contends  with  them,  gets  a  perfectly  defi- 


234  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

nite  moral  content  into  his  life.  And  he  has  his 
right  to  do  so.  Whatever  his  rehgion,  he  is  morally 
authorised  to  labour  against  these  unmediated  evils 
with  the  heartiest  intolerance.  When  such  labour 
takes  on  social  forms,  it  helps  toward  the  loftiest 
humanity.  The  war  with  pain  and  disease  and 
oppression,  the  effort  to  bind  up  wounds  and  to 
snatch  souls  from  destruction — all  these  things  con- 
stitute some  of  man's  greatest  opportunities  for  loy- 
alty. Nevertheless,  when  man  loyally  wars  with 
the  ills  such  as  physical  anguish  and  pestilence  and 
famine  and  oppression,  he  does  not  thereby  tend  to 
discover,  through  his  own  loyal  act,  why  such  in- 
dividual ills  are  permitted  in  the  world.  In  so  far 
as  these  evils  give  him  opportunity  for  service,  they 
appeal  to  his  loyalty  as  a  warrior  against  them.  If 
his  cause  includes,  for  him,  activities  that  enter  into 
this  warfare  with  ills  that  are  to  be  destroyed,  these 
ills  have  thus  indirectly  conduced  to  his  religious 
life.  But  it  is  his  loyalty  that  in  such  cases  is  his 
source  of  religious  insight.  The  ills  themselves  that 
he  thus  destructively  fights  remain  to  him  as  opaque 
as  before.  Why  they  find  their  place  in  the  world 
he  does  not  see.  Now  that  they  are  found  there, 
lie  knows  what  to  do  with  them — namely,  to  annul 
them,  to  put  them  out  of  existence,  as  a  part  of  his 
loyal  service.  But  if  he  is  religiously  minded,  he 
does  not  for  a  moment  conceive  that  the  ills  with 
which  he  wars  are  there  simply  to  give  him  the  op- 
portunity for  his  service.    So  far  then  it  is,  indeed. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  235 

true  that  the  ills  which  we  have  simply  to  destroy 
offer  us  no  source  of  religious  insight. 

But  now,  as  I  must  insist,  not  all  the  ills  that  we 
know  are  of  this  nature.  Wide  and  deep  and  ter- 
rible as  are  those  conflicts  with  the  incomprehen- 
sible ills  of  fortune  whose  presence  in  the  world  we 
do  not  understand,  there  are  other  ills.  And  toward 
these  other  ills  we  take  an  attitude  which  is  not 
wholly  destructive.  We  find  them,  upon  a  closer 
view,  inseparably  bound  up  with  good — so  closely 
bound  up  therewith  that  we  could  not  conceive  a 
life  wherein  this  sort  of  good  which  is  here  bound  up 
with  this  sort  of  ill  could  be  separated  therefrom. 
In  these  cases  the  principle:  "Evil  should  be  sim- 
ply put  out  of  existence,"  proves  to  be  a  palpable 
falsity.  As  our  knowledge  of  such  ills  grows  clearer, 
we  commonly  find  that  there  is,  indeed,  something 
about  them,  as  they  at  any  one  moment  appear  to 
us,  which  ought,  indeed,  to  be  annulled,  set  aside, 
destroyed.  But  this  annulling  of  one  momentary 
or  at  least  transient  aspect  of  the  ill  is  but  part, 
in  such  cases,  of  a  constructive  process,  which  in- 
volves growth  rather  than  destruction — a  passage 
to  a  new  life  rather  than  a  casting  wholly  out  of  life. 
Such  ills  we  remove  only  in  so  far  as  we  assimilate 
them,  idealise  them,  take  them  up  into  the  plan 
of  our  lives,  give  them  meaning,  set  them  in  their 
place  in  the  whole. 

Now  such  ills,  as  I  must  insist,  play  a  very  great 
part  in  life  and  especially  in  the  higher  life.     Our 


236  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

attitude  toward  them  constitutes,  above  all,  on  the 
very  highest  levels  of  our  reasonableness,  a  very 
great  part  of  our  attitude  toward  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  life.  In  the  presence  of  these  idealised  evils, 
man  the  destroyer  becomes  transformed  into  man 
the  creator.  And  he  does  so  without  in  the  least 
abandoning  his  justified  moral  distinctions,  without 
indulging  in  any  sort  of  "moral  holiday,"  and  with- 
out becoming  unwilling  to  destroy  when  he  cannot 
otherwise  rationally  face  the  facts  before  him  than 
by  destrojdng.  He  is  not  less  strenuous  in  his  deal- 
ing with  his  moral  situation  because  he  has  discov- 
ered how  to  substitute  growth  for  destruction  and 
creative  assimilation  for  barren  hostility.  He  is  all 
the  more  effectively  loyal  in  the  presence  of  such 
ills,  because  he  sees  how  they  can  become,  for  his 
consciousness,  parts  of  a  good  whole. 

Ills  of  this  sort  may  become,  and  in  the  better 
cases  do  become,  sources  of  religious  insight.  Their 
presence  in  our  world  enables  us  the  better  to  com- 
prehend its  spiritual  unity.  And  because  they  are 
often  very  deep  and  tragic  ills,  which  we  face  only 
with  very  deep  and  dear  travail  of  spirit,  they  hint 
to  us  how,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  world-em- 
bracing insight,  the  countless  and  terrible  ills  of  the 
other  sort,  which  we  cannot  now  understand,  and 
which,  at  present,  appear  to  us  merely  as  worthy  of 
utter  destruction,  may  still  also  have  their  places, 
as  stages  and  phases  of  expression,  in  the  larger  life 
to  which  we  belong.     In  our  own  power  to  assimilate 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  237 

and  spiritualise  our  own  ills,  we  can  get  at  times  a 
hint  of  such  larger  spiritual  processes.  In  these 
very  processes  we  also,  through  our  loyal  endeavour, 
can  act  our  own  real  part;  although  ichat  the  larger 
processes  are  we  cannot  expect  at  present  to  com- 
prehend better  than  a  sympathising  dog,  whose 
master  is  devoting  his  life  to  furthering  the  highest 
spiritual  welfare  of  a  nation  or  of  all  mankind,  can 
know  why  his  master's  face  is  now  grief-stricken 
and  now  joyous. 

In  other  words,  the  ills  that  we  can  spiritualise 
and  idealise  without  merely  destroying  them  hint 
to  us  that,  despite  the  uncomprehended  chaos  of 
seemingly  hopeless  tragedy  with  which  for  our  pres- 
ent view  human  life  seems  to  be  beset,  the  vision 
of  the  spiritual  triumph  of  the  good  which  reason 
and  loyalty  present  to  us  need  not  be  an  illusion, 
but  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  facts.  The 
world  is  infinite.  With  our  present  view  we  could 
not  expect  to  grasp  directly  the  unity  of  its  mean- 
ing. We  have  sources  of  insight  which  tend  to  our 
salvation  by  showing  us,  in  general,  although  cer- 
tainly not  in  detail,  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  pro- 
cess which,  as  these  sources  of  insight  persistently 
point  out,  constitutes  the  essence  of  reality.  \\Tiether 
these  sources  are  themselves  valid  and  trustworthy 
is  a  question  to  be  considered  upon  its  own  merits. 
I  have  stated  my  case  so  far  as  our  brief  review  re- 
quires it  to  be  stated.  I  must  leave  to  your  own 
considerateness  the  further  estimate  of  what  these 


238  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

sources  teach,  both  as  to  the  reahty  of  the  master 
of  Hfe  and  as  to  the  nature  of  the  process  of  salva- 
tion. My  present  concern  is  simply  with  the  cloud 
that  the  presence  of  evil  seems  to  cause  to  pass  over 
the  face  of  all  these  sources.  I  cannot  undertake 
wholly  to  dispel  this  cloud  by  showing  you  in  de- 
tail why  pestilences  or  why  broken  hearts  are  per- 
mitted to  exist  in  this  world.  But  I  can  show  you 
that  there  are,  indeed,  ills,  and  very  dark  ills  in  life, 
which  not  only  are  there,  but  are  essential  to  the 
highest  life.  I  do  not  exaggerate  our  power  to  solve 
mysteries  when  I  insist  that  these  ills  constitute  not 
an  opaque  hindrance  to  insight,  not  a  cloud  over 
the  sun  of  reason  and  of  loyalty,  but  rather  a  source 
of  insight.  And,  as  I  insist,  they  constitute  such  a 
source  without  being  in  the  least  an  excuse  for  any 
indolence  in  our  moral  struggle  with  precisely  those 
aspects  of  such  ills  as  we  ought  to  destroy.  They 
show  us  how  the  triumph  of  the  moral  will  over  such 
adversities  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  recogni- 
tion that  the  most  rational  type  of  life  demands  the 
existence  of  just  such  adversities.  Their  presence  in 
our  world  does  not  excuse  sloth,  does  not  justify 
a  "moral  holiday,"  does  not  permit  us  to  enjoy  any 
mere  luxury  of  mystical  contemplation  of  the  tri- 
umph of  the  divine  in  the  world,  without  ourselves 
taking  our  rational  and  strenuous  part  in  the  actual 
attainment  of  such  triumph.  But  what  these  forms 
of  ill  show  us  is  that  there  are  accessible  cases  in 
which  if — but  only  if — one  does  the  divine  will — one 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  239 

can  know  of  the  doctrine  that  teaches  how  the  di- 
vine will  can  and  does  become  perfect,  not  through 
the  mere  abolition  of  evil,  but  through  suffering. 
Such  cases  of  ill  are  true  sources  of  insight.  They 
reveal  to  us  some  of  the  deepest  truths  about  what 
loyalty,  and  spiritual  triumph,  and  the  good  really 
are.  They  make  for  salvation.  They  drive  away 
clouds  and  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  will  of  the 
world. 

I  have  so  far  spoken  of  evil  in  general.  For  the 
present  purpose  I  need  a  name  for  the  ills  that  one 
rationally  faces  only  when  one,  through  some  es- 
sentially active,  constructive,  moral  process,  crea- 
tively assimilates  and  idealises  them,  and  thus  wins 
them  over  to  be  a  part  of  good — not  when  one  merely 
drives  them  out  of  existence.  One  name  for  such 
ills  is  Griselda's  name:  "Adversities."  But  I  have 
chosen,  in  the  title  of  this  lecture,  to  use  the  vaguer 
untechnical  name:  Sorrow.  A  great  physical  pain, 
you  in  general  cannot,  at  least  at  the  moment,  ideal- 
ise. You  then  and  there  face  it  only  as  something 
intolerable,  and  can  see  no  good  except  through  its 
mere  abolition.  The  same  is  true  of  any  crushing 
blow  of  fortune,  precisely  in  so  far  as  it  crushes.  All 
such  things  you  then  and  there  view  narrowly. 
Their  mystery  lies  in  the  very  fact  that  they  are 
thus,  for  the  moment,  seen  only  narrowly.  Hence, 
they  are  ipso  facto  hindrances  to  insight.  But  a 
sorrow — when  you  use  the  word  you  have  already 
begun  to  assimilate  and  idealise  the  fact  that  you 


240  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

call  a  sorrow.  That  you  have  begun  to  idealise 
it,  the  very  luxury  of  deep  grief  often  vaguely  hints, 
sometimes  clearly  shows.  For  sorrows  may  have 
already  become  tragically  precious  to  you.  Would 
you  forget  your  lost  love,  or  your  dead,  or  your 
"days  that  are  no  more,"  even  if  you  could?  Is 
mere  destruction,  then,  your  only  tendency  in  the 
presence  of  such  sorrows.  A  closer  view  of  your 
attitude  toward  such  sorrows  shows  that  they  are 
not  only  clouding  but  revealing.  They  begin,  they 
may  endlessly  continue,  to  show  you  the  way  into 
the  spiritual  realm  and  the  nature  of  this  realm. 

By  sorrow,  then,  I  here  mean  an  experience  of  ill 
which  is  not  wholly  an  experience  of  that  which  as 
you  then  and  there  believe  ought  to  be  simply  driven 
out  of  existence.  The  insight  of  which  sorrow  is  the 
source,  is  an  insight  that  tends  to  awaken  within 
you  a  new  view  of  what  the  spiritual  realm  is.  This 
view  is  not  in  the  least  what  some  recent  writers 
have  blindly  proclaimed  it  to  be — a  philosopher's 
artificial  abstraction — a  cruel  effort  to  substitute  a 
"soft"  doctrine  of  the  study  for  a  moral  and  humane 
facing  of  the  "hard"  facts  of  human  life.  No,  this 
view  is  the  soul  of  the  teaching  of  all  the  world's 
noblest  and  most  practical  guides  to  the  most  con- 
crete living.  This  view  faces  hardness,  it  endures 
and  overcomes.  Poets,  prophets,  martyrs,  sages, 
artists,  the  heroes  of  spirituality  of  every  land  and 
clime,  have  found  in  it  comfort,  resolution,  and  tri- 
umph.   The  philosopher,  at  best,  can  report  what 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  241 

these  have  seen.  And  "soft,"  indeed,  is  the  type 
of  thoughtful  effort  which  dedines  to  follow  with 
its  ideas  what  all  these  have  learned  to  express  in 
their  lives  and  in  their  religion. 


Because  I  am  here  not  stating  for  you  a  merely 
speculative  doctrine  concerning  the  place  of  evil 
in  a  good  and  rational  spiritual  world,  I  once  more 
need,  at  this  point,  to  appeal  as  directly  as  I  can  to 
life.  Let  me  present  to  you,  from  recent  literature, 
a  noteworthy  instance  of  the  use  of  our  present 
source  of  insight.  The  instance  is  confessedly  one 
where  no  complete  and  determinate  religious  creed 
is  defended  as  the  result  of  the  use  of  the  insight 
in  question.  And  an  actually  eternal  truth  about 
the  spiritual  world — a  very  old  truth  in  the  lore 
of  the  wise,  but  a  deeply  needed  truth  for  our  own 
day — is  illustrated  by  the  instance  which  the  tale 
portrays. 

I  refer  to  a  recent  short  story,  published  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  for  November,  1910,  and  written 
by  Cornelia  A.  P.  Comer.  It  is  entitled  "The  Pre- 
liminaries." It  is,  to  my  mind,  an  impressive  union 
of  a  genuinely  effective  realism  and  a  deep  sj'mbol- 
ism.  The  characters  are  very  real  human  beings. 
Their  problem  is  one  of  the  most  familiar  problems 
of  daily  life — the  problem  as  to  the  advisability  of 
the  proposed  marriage  of  two  young  lovers.     The 


242  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

conditions  of  the  problem  are  hard  facts,  of  a  general 
type  that  is  unfortunately  frequent  enough  under 
our  confusing  modern  conditions.  These  facts  are 
viewed  in  the  tale  as  such  people  might  well  view 
them.  And  yet  the  issues  involved  are,  like  all  the 
problems  of  young  lovers,  issues  that  are  bound 
up  with  all  the  interests  of  religion  and  with  the 
whole  problem  of  the  reality  of  a  spiritual  world. 
These  issues  are  treated  as  they  truly  are,  with  a 
result  that  is  fairly  supernatural  in  its  ancient  but 
always  new  appeal  to  a  source  of  insight  that  we 
can  reach  only  through  sorrow. 

Since  the  question  inevitably  concerns  the  pros- 
pects of  the  proposed  marriage,  the  first  statement 
of  the  problem  is  fully  in  harmony  with  the  spirit 
of  recent  pragmatism.  The  truth  of  the  assertion: 
"We  ought  to  marry,"  is  surely  a  truth  that,  as  the 
pragmatists  would  say,  the  young  lovers  who  make 
the  assertion  should  regard  as  quite  inseparable  from 
the  probable  results  to  which  this  marriage  will  lead 
in  concrete  life.  Such  a  truth  then  is,  one  would 
say,  wholly  empirical.  A  marriage  proposal,  to  use 
the  favourite  phrase  of  pragmatism,  is  a  "working 
hypothesis."  Such  hypotheses  must  be  submitted 
to  the  test  of  experience.  No  such  test,  it  would 
seem,  would  be  absolute.  What  does  poor  humanity 
know  as  to  the  real  values  of  our  destiny?  Mean- 
while the  whole  problem  of  good  and  evil  is  in  ques- 
tion. jNIarriage,  especially  under  certain  conditions, 
will  lead  to  one  or  another  sorrow.     Can  one  face 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  243 

sorrow  with  any  really  deeper  trust  in  life?  Is  life 
really  a  good  at  all,  since  there  is  so  much  sorrow 
in  it?  Must  not  any  prudent  person  be  afraid  of 
life?  Ought  the  lovers  to  defy  fortune  and  to  ignore 
obvious  worldly  prudence? 

Such  is  the  first  statement  of  the  problem.  Its 
treatment  in  this  admirable  sketch  shows  an  in- 
sight into  the  nature  of  good  and  evil  which  I  had 
myself  come  to  regard  as  very  little  present  to  the 
minds  of  the  story-tellers  of  to-day,  who  are  so  often 
dominated  by  the  recent  love  of  power,  by  the 
tedious  blindness  of  modern  individualism,  by  false 
doctrines  as  to  the  merely  temporal  expediency  of 
truth,  and  by  the  merely  glittering  show  of  unspirit- 
ual  worldly  eflSciency.  I  rejoice  to  find  that,  in  a 
literature  which  has  been,  of  late,  so  devastated  by 
a  popularly  trivial  interpretation  of  pragmatism,  and 
by  an  equally  trivial  disregard  for  the  "  rule  of  rea- 
son," there  is  still  place  for  so  straightforward  and 
practical  a  recognition  of  eternal  truth  as  the  wise 
woman  who  has  written  this  short  story  exemplifies. 

The  issue  regarding  this  particular  marriage  pro- 
posal is  stated  at  once  in  the  opening  words  of  the 
tale: 

"Young  Oliver  Pickersgill  was  in  love  with  Peter 
Lannithorne's  daughter.  Peter  Lannithorne  was 
serving  a  six-year  term  in  the  penitentiary  for  em- 
bezzlement." 

The  young  hero  is  depicted  as  a  high-minded 
youth  of  unquestionable  and  prosperous  social  posi- 


244  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

tion  in  his  community.  His  beloved  is  a  loyal 
daughter  who  is  convinced  that  her  father's  crime 
was  due  solely  to  a  momentary  and  benevolent 
weakness,  and  to  a  mind  confused  by  care  for  the 
needs  and  too  importunate  requirements  of  his  own 
family.  Not  unjustly  attributing  the  father's  final 
downfall  to  the  impatience,  to  the  agonising  dis- 
content, and  to  the  worldly  ambition  of  her  own 
mother,  the  daughter  with  spirit  replies  to  the  lover's 
proposal  by  saying  plainly:  "I  will  never  marry 
any  one  who  doesn't  respect  my  father  as  I  do." 
The  lovers  somewhat  easily  come  to  terms,  at  least 
apparently,  as  to  this  sole  present  ground  for  dis- 
agreement. The  youth,  not  without  inward  diffi- 
culty, is  ready  to  accept  the  daughter's  version  of 
her  father's  misadventure.  In  any  case,  love  makes 
him  indifferent  to  merely  worldly  scruples,  and  he 
has  no  fear  of  his  own  power  to  face  his  commu- 
nity as  the  loving  husband  of  a  convict's  daughter; 
though  there  is,  indeed,  no  doubt  as  to  the  father's 
actual  guilt,  and  although  Lannithorne  is  known  to 
have  admitted  the  justice  of  his  sentence. 

But  to  love,  and  to  be  magnanimously  hopeful — 
this  is  not  the  same  as  to  convince  other  people  that 
such  a  marriage  is  prudent,  or  is  likely,  as  the  prag- 
matists  would  say,  to  have  "expedient  workings." 
Young  Oliver  has  to  persuade  Ruth's  mother  on  the 
one  hand,  his  own  father  on  the  other,  that  such  a 
marriage  is  reasonable.  Both  prove  to  be  hard  to 
convince.     To  the  ordinary  scruples  of  worldly  pru- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  245 

dence  which  young  lovers  generally  have  to  answer, 
they  easily  add  seemingly  unanswerable  objections. 
The  mother — the  convict's  wife — now  a  brilliantly 
clear-witted  but  hopelessly  narrow-minded  invalid — 
a  broken  woman  of  the  world — pragmatically  en- 
lightened, in  a  way,  by  the  bitter  experience  of 
sorrow,  but  not  in  the  least  brought  thereby  to  any 
deeper  insight,  faces  the  lover  as  an  intruder  upon 
her  daughter's  peace  and  her  own  desolation.  She  has 
known,  she  says,  what  the  bitterness  of  an  unhappy 
marriage  can  be  and  is.  If  she  herself  has  had  her 
share  of  blame  for  her  husband's  downfall,  that  only 
the  more  shows  her  such  truth  as,  in  this  dark  world, 
she  still  can  grasp.  "  I  do  not  want  my  daughters  to 
marry" — this  is,  to  her,  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter.  The  bitterness  of  her  own  marriage  has 
taught  her  this  lesson,  which  she  expounds  to  the 
lover  with  all  the  passion  of  wounded  pride  and  the 
dear-bought  lore  of  life  as  she  has  learned  it.  But 
of  course,  as  she  admits,  she  may  be  wrong.  Let 
the  lover  consult  her  husband  at  the  jail.  He — 
the  convict — is  a  well-meaning  man,  after  all.  He 
fell;  but  he  is  not  at  heart  a  criminal.  Let  him 
say  whether  he  wants  his  daughter  to  take  up  the 
burden  of  this  new  tragedy.  So  the  mother  con- 
cludes her  parable. 

The  lover,  baflSed,  but  still  hopeful,  next  turns  to 
his  own  father  for  consent  and  encouragement. 
But  now  he  has  to  listen  to  the  teachings  of  a  loftier 
yet  to  him  profoundly  discouraging  prudence.     Oli- 


246  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ver's  father  is  a  truly  high-minded  man  of  the  world, 
with  a  genuinely  religious  feeling  in  the  background 
of  his  mind,  and  is  intensely  devoted  to  his  son. 
But  from  this  proposed  match  he  recoils  with  a 
natural  horror.  The  world  is  full  of  good  girls. 
Why  not  choose  one  who  brings  no  such  sorrow  with 
her?  Peter  Lannithorne  was  in  his  crime  no  worse, 
indeed,  than  many  other  men  who  are  not  in  jail. 
He  even  meant  on  the  whole  well,  and  blundered, 
until  at  last  from  blunder  he  drifted  into  crime. 
He  then  took  his  penalty  like  a  man,  and  owned 
that  it  was  just.  But,  after  all,  he  was  found  out. 
Such  a  taint  lasts.  It  cannot  be  removed  by  re- 
pentance. The  proposed  marriage  can  only  lead 
to  misery.  Peter  Lannithorne  himself,  who,  after 
all,  "knows  what's  what,"  would  be  the  first  to  ad- 
mit this  fact,  if  one  asked  his  advice.  If  the  son 
must  persist  in  making  light  of  a  loving  father's 
wisdom — well,  let  him  then  consult  Peter  Lanni- 
thorne himself.  Ask  the  convict  in  his  prison  what 
a  man  needs  and  expects  in  the  family  of  the  woman 
whom  he  is  to  marry.  This  is  the  father's  firm 
but  kindly  ultimatum. 

Terrified  by  the  gravity  of  repeated  warnings, 
and  dispirited  by  having  to  leave  his  dearest  prob- 
lem to  the  decision  of  the  convict  himself,  Oliver 
determines  to  face  the  inevitable.  He  arranges  for 
the  interview  at  the  jail,  and  is  left  by  the  warden 
alone  with  the  prisoner  in  the  prison  library.  Sud- 
denly, as  he  faces  his  man,  the  youth  finds  himself 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  247 

in  the  presence  of  one  who  has  somehow  been  trans- 
formed as  if  by  a  supernatural  power.  As  for  the 
convict's  person — 

His  features  were  irregular  and  unnoticeable;  but  the 
sum-total  of  them  gave  the  impression  of  force.  It  was  a 
strong  face,  yet  you  could  see  that  it  had  once  been  a  weak 
one.  It  was  a  tremendously  human  face,  a  face  like  a  battle- 
ground, scarred  and  seamed  and  lined  with  the  stress  of 
invisible  conflicts.  .  .  .  Not  a  triumphant  face  at  all,  and 
yet  there  was  peace  in  it.  Somehow,  the  man  had  achieved 
something,  arrived  somewhere,  and  the  record  of  the  journey 
was  piteous  and  terrible.  Yet  it  drew  the  eyes  in  awe  as 
much  as  in  wonder,  and  in  pity  not  at  all. 

OHver,  reassured  by  the  new  presence,  and  glad  to 
find  himself  at  last  facing  a  man  who  has  nothing 
left  to  fear  in  life,  states  as  well  as  possible  his  main 
problem.  The  father  of  his  beloved  listens,  first 
with  surprise  at  the  news,  then  with  seriousness. 
Oliver  finds  himself  forced  to  cut  deep  when  he  re- 
peats his  own  father's  appeal  to  know  the  convict's 
opinion  about  what  a  man  expects  to  meet  in  his 
future  wife's  family,  and  then  pauses  with  a  keen 
sense  of  the  cruelty  of  his  own  position.  But  Lan- 
nithorne,  who  has  long  since  become  accustomed  to 
feeling  the  ploughshare  of  passion  grind  dowTi  to 
his  uttermost  rock,  is  perfectly  ready  with  his  re- 
sponse. As  the  youth  pauses  and  then  begins  a 
new  appeal — 

The  man  looked  up  and  held  up  an  arresting  hand.  "Let 
me  clear  the  way  for  you  a  little,"  he  said.     "  It  was  a  hard 


248  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

thing  for  you  to  come  and  seek  me  out  in  this  place.  I  like 
your  coming.  Most  young  men  would  have  refused,  or  come 
in  a  different  spirit.  I  want  you  to  understand  that  if  in 
Ruth's  eyes,  and  my  wife's,  and  your  father's,  my  counsel 
has  value,  it  is  because  they  think  I  see  things  as  they  are. 
And  that  means,  first  of  all,  that  I  know  myself  for  a  man  who 
committed  a  crime  and  is  paying  the  penalty.  I  am  satis- 
fied to  be  paying  it.  As  I  see  justice,  it  is  just.  So,  if  I 
seem  to  wince  at  your  necessary  allusions  to  it,  that  is  part 
of  the  price.  I  don't  want  you  to  feel  that  you  are  blunder- 
ing or  hurting  me  more  than  is  necessary.  You  have  got 
to  lay  the  thing  before  me  as  it  is." 

Something  in  the  words,  in  the  dry,  patient  manner,  in 
the  endurance  of  the  man's  face,  touched  Oliver  to  the  quick 
and  made  him  feel  all  manner  of  new  things :  such  as  a  sense 
of  the  moral  poise  of  the  universe,  acquiescence  in  its  retribu- 
tions, and  a  curious  pride,  akin  to  Ruth's  own,  in  a  man  who 
could  meet  him  after  this  fashion,  in  this  place. 

Hereupon,  fully  aroused,  the  youth  tells  with 
freedom  why  the  problem  seems  so  hard  for  the 
young  people,  and  how  their  elders  all  insist  upon 
such  frightful  discouragements,  and  how  much  he 
longs  to  know  the  truth  about  life,  and  whether  all 
such  doubts  and  scruples  as  those  of  his  own  father 
and  of  Ruth's  mother  are  well  founded.  At  last 
the  prisoner  begins  his  reply: 

"They  haven't  the  point  of  view,"  he  said.  "It  is  life 
that  is  the  great  adventure.  Not  love,  not  marriage,  not 
business.  They  are  just  chapters  in  the  book.  The  main 
thing  is  to  take  the  road  fearlessly — to  have  courage  to  live 
one's  life." 

"Courage?" 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  249 

Lannithorne  nodded. 

"That  is  the  great  word.  Don't  you  see  what  ails  your 
father's  point  of  view,  and  my  wife's?  One  wants  absolute 
security  in  one  way  for  Ruth;  the  other  wants  absolute 
security  in  another  way  for  you.  And  security — why,  it's 
just  the  one  thing  a  human  being  can't  have,  the  thing  that's 
the  damnation  of  him  if  he  gets  it!  The  reason  it  is  so  hard 
for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  that  he 
has  that  false  sense  of  security.  To  demand  it  just  disinte- 
grates a  man.     I  don't  know  why.     It  does." 

Oliver  shook  his  head  uncertainly. 

"I  don't  quite  follow  you,  sir.  Oughtn't  one  to  try  to  be 
safe?" 

"One  ought  to  try,  yes.  That  is  common  prudence.  But 
the  point  is  that,  whatever  you  do  or  get,  you  aren't  after  all 
secure.  There  is  no  such  condition,  and  the  harder  you  de- 
mand it,  the  more  risk  you  run.  So  it  is  up  to  a  man  to  take 
all  reasonable  precautions  about  his  money,  or  his  happiness, 
or  his  life,  and  trust  the  rest.  What  every  man  in  the  world 
is  looking  for  is  the  sense  of  having  the  mastery  over  life.  But 
I  tell  you,  boy,  there  is  only  one  thing  that  really  gives  it!" 

"And  that  is ?" 

Lannithorne  hesitated  perceptibly.  For  the  thing  he  was 
about  to  tell  this  undisciplined  lad  was  his  most  precious 
possession;  it  was  the  price  of  wisdom  for  which  he  had  paid 
with  the  years  of  his  life.  No  man  parts  lightly  with  such 
knowledge. 

"It  comes,"  he  said,  with  an  effort,  "with  the  knowledge  of 
our  power  to  endure.  That's  it.  You  are  safe  only  when 
you  can  stand  everything  that  can  happen  to  you.  Then,  and 
then  only!  Endurance  is  the  measure  of  a  man!  .  .  .  Some- 
times I  think  it  is  harder  to  endure  what  we  deserve,  like  me," 
said  Lannithorne,  "than  what  we  don't.  I  was  afraid,  you 
see,  afraid  for  my  wife  and  all  of  them.  Anyhow,  take  my 
word  for  it.     Courage  is  security.     There  is  no  other  kind." 


250  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 


'Then— Ruth  and  I- 


"Ruth  is  the  core  of  my  heart!"  said  Lannithorne  thickly. 
"I  would  rather  die  than  have  her  suffer  more  than  she  must. 
But  she  must  take  her  chances  like  the  rest.  It  is  the  law  of 
things.  If  you  know  yourself  fit  for  her,  and  feel  reason- 
ably sure  you  can  take  care  of  her,  you  have  a  right  to 
trust  the  future.  Myself,  I  believe  there  is  some  One  to 
trust  it  to." 

The  speaker  of  this  hard-won  wisdom,  after  this 
appeal  to  the  eternal,  utters  his  last  tremulous  word 
as  from  a  father's  loving  heart,  and  then  the  inter- 
view must  end.    The  author  concludes: 

Finding  his  way  out  of  the  prison  yard  a  few  minutes 
later,  Oliver  looked,  unseeing,  at  the  high  walls  that  soared 
against  the  blue  spring  sky.  He  could  not  realise  them, 
there  was  such  a  sense  of  light,  air,  space,  in  his  spirit. 

Apparently,  he  was  just  where  he  had  been  an  hour  before, 
with  all  his  battles  still  to  fight,  but  really  he  knew  they  were 
already  won,  for  his  weapon  had  been  forged  and  put  in  his 
hand.  He  left  his  boyhood  behind  him  as  he  passed  that 
stern  threshold,  for  the  last  hour  had  made  a  man  of  him, 
and  a  prisoner  had  given  him  the  master-key  that  opens 
every  door. 

VI 

Now  this,  I  insist,  is  insight.  It  is  no  "soft" 
doctrine.  It  is  far  beyond  the  sort  of  pragmatism 
that  accepts  the  test  of  momentary  results.  As  far 
as  it  goes,  it  is  religious  insight.  It  is  insight,  more- 
over, into  the  nature  of  certain  ills  which  cannot, 
yes,  which  in  principle,  and  even  by  omnipotence, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  251 

could  not,  be  simply  removed  from  existence  without 
abolishing  the  conditions  which  are  logically  neces- 
sary to  the  very  highest  good  that  we  know.  Life 
in  the  spirit  simply  presupposes  the  conditions  that 
these  ills  exemplify. 

What  sorrow  is  deeper  than  the  full  recognition 
of  one's  own  now  irrevocable  deed,  if  one  has,  here- 
upon, fully  to  confess  that  this  deed  is,  from  one's 
own  present  point  of  view,  a  crime?  Yet  how  could 
such  ills  be  simply  removed  from  existence  if  any 
range  of  individual  expression,  of  freedom,  of  power 
to  choose  is  to  be  left  open  at  all?  How  can  one 
possess  spiritual  effectiveness — the  privilege  that 
youth  most  ardently  demands — without  assuming 
the  risk  involved  in  taking  personal  responsibility 
for  some  aspects  of  the  lives  of  our  fellows?  As  for 
our  blunders,  what  more  precious  privilege  do  we 
all  claim  than  the  privilege  of  making  our  own 
blunders,  or  at  least  a  due  proportion  of  them? 
WTien  we  act,  every  act  is  done  for  eternity,  since 
it  is  irrevocable.  When  we  love,  we  ask  the  priv- 
ilege to  bind  up  other  destinies  with  our  own.  The 
tragedies  of  such  a  world  as  ours  are,  therefore,  not 
such  as  could  be  simply  wiped  out  of  existence,  un- 
less one  were  ready  to  deprive  every  individual  per- 
sonality both  of  its  range  of  free  choice  and  of  its 
effectiveness  of  action.  \Mien  we  suffer,  then,  in 
such  a  world,  we  know  indeed  that  there  need  have 
been  no  such  suffering  had  there  been  no  world  at  all. 
But  precisely  when  our  ills  are  most  bound  up  with 


252  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

our  own  personal  wills,  we  know  that  no  mere  re- 
moval of  such  ills  could  have  occurred  without  the 
abolition  of  all  the  conditions  which  our  spiritual 
freedom,  our  longing  for  effectiveness,  and  our  love 
for  union  with  other  personalities  make  us  regard 
as  the  conditions  of  the  highest  good.  No  God  could 
conceivably  give  you  the  good  of  self-expression 
without  granting  you  the  privilege,  not  only  of 
choosing  wrongly,  but  of  involving  your  brethren  in 
the  results  of  your  misdeed.  For  when  you  love 
your  kind,  you  aim  to  be  a  factor  in  their  lives;  and 
to  deprive  you  of  this  privilege  would  be  to  insure 
your  total  failure.  But  if  you  possess  this  privilege, 
you  share  in  a  life  that,  in  proportion  to  its  impor- 
tance and  depth  and  range  and  richness  of  spiritual 
relations,  is  full  of  the  possibilities  of  tragedy. 

Face  such  tragedy,  however,  and  what  does  it 
show  you?  The  possibility,  not  of  annulling  an 
evil,  or  of  ceasing  to  regret  it,  but  of  showing  spir- 
itual power,  first,  through  idealising  your  grief,  by 
seeing  even  through  this  grief  the  depth  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  our  relations  as  individuals  to  one  an- 
other, to  our  social  order,  and  to  the  whole  of  life; 
secondly,  through  enduring  your  fortune;  and  thirdly, 
through  conquering,  by  the  might  of  the  spirit,  those 
goods  which  can  only  be  won  through  such  sorrow. 
What  those  goods  are,  the  convict  has  just,  if  only 
in  small  part,  told  us.  Griselda  told  us  something 
about  them  which  is  much  deeper  still.  For  ad- 
versity and  loyalty  are,  indeed,  simply  inseparable 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  253 

companions.  There  could  not  be  loyalty  in  a  world 
where  the  loyal  being  himself  met  no  adversities 
that  personally  belonged  to  and  entered  his  own 
inner  life.  That  this  is  true,  let  every  loyal  ex- 
perience bear  witness. 

Now  such  sorrows,  such  idealised  evils,  which  are 
so  interwoven  with  good  that  if  the  precious  grief 
were  wholly  removed  from  existence,  the  courage, 
the  fidelity,  the  spiritual  self-possession,  the  peace 
through  and  in  and  beyond  tribulation  which  such 
trials  alone  make  possible,  would  also  be  removed — 
they  surely  show  us  that  the  abstract  principle: 
"Evil  ought  to  be  abolished,"  is  false.  They  show 
us  that  the  divine  will  also  must  be  made  perfect 
through  suffering.  Since  we  can  comprehend  the 
meaning  of  such  experiences  only  through  resolute 
action,  through  courage,  through  loyalty,  through 
the  power  of  the  spirit,  they  in  no  wise  justify  sloth, 
or  mere  passivity,  or  mystical  idleness.  The  active 
dealing  with  such  sorrow  gives,  as  James  himself 
once  well  asserts,  a  new  dimension  to  life.  No  ex- 
periences go  further  than  do  these  to  show  us  how, 
in  our  loyalty  and  in  our  courage,  we  are  becoming 
one  with  the  master  of  life,  who  through  sorrow 
overcomes. 

Let  man,  the  destroyer,  then  remember  that  there 
is  one  ill  which  he  could  not  destroy,  even  if  he  were 
God,  without  also  destroying  all  the  spiritual 
prowess  in  which  all  those  rejoice  who,  inspired  by 
ftn  ambition  infinitely  above  that  of  Achilles,  long 


254  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

to  be  one  with  God  through  bearing  and  overcoming 
the  sorrows  of  a  world. 

We  have  thus  indicated  a  source  of  insight.  To 
tell  more  about  what  it  reveals  would  at  once  lead 
me,  as  you  see,  close  to  the  most  vital  of  all  Chris- 
tian teachings,  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  But 
such  a  study  belongs  elsewhere. 


VII 

THE  UNITY  OF  THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE 
INVISIBLE  CHURCH 


VII 


THE    UNITY   OF   THE    SPIRIT   AND   THE 
INVISIBLE  CHURCH 

My  present  and  concluding  lecture  must  begin 
with  some  explanations  of  what  I  mean  by  the  term 
"The  Unity  of  the  Spirit."  Then  I  shall  have  to 
define  my  use  of  the  term  "The  Invisible  Church." 
Thereafter,  we  shall  be  free  to  devote  ourselves  to 
the  consideration  of  a  source  of  religious  insight  as 
omnipresent  as  it  is  variously  interpreted  by  those 
who,  throughout  all  the  religious  world,  daily  ap- 
peal to  its  guidance.  The  outcome  of  our  discus- 
sion may  help  some  of  you,  as  I  hope,  to  turn  your 
attention  more  toward  the  region  where  the  greatest 
help  is  to  be  found  in  the  cultivation  of  that  true 
loyalty  which,  if  I  am  right,  is  the  heart  and  core 
of  every  higher  religion. 


In  these  lectures  I  have  repeatedly  called  the 
religious  objects,  that  is,  the  objects  whereof  the 
knowledge  tends  to  the  salvation  of  man,  "super- 
human" and  "supernatural"  objects.  I  have  more 
or  less  fully  explained,  as  I  went,  the  sense  in  which 

257 


258  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

I  hold  these  objects  to  be  both  superhuman  and 
supernatural.  But  every  use  of  famUiar  traditional 
terms  is  likely  to  arouse  misunderstandings.  I  have 
perfectly  definite  reasons  for  my  choice  of  the  tradi- 
tional words  in  question  as  adjectives  wherewith  to 
characterise  the  religious  objects.  But  I  do  not 
want  to  leave  in  your  minds  any  doubts  as  to  what 
my  usage  is  deliberately  intended  to  imply.  I  do 
not  want  to  seem  to  make  any  wrong  use  of  the 
vaguer  associations  which  will  be  in  your  minds 
when  something  human  is  compared  with  something 
superhuman,  and  when  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural are  contrasted.  This  closing  lecture,  in 
which  I  am  to  deal  with  an  aspect  of  spiritual  life 
which  we  have  everywhere  in  our  discourse  tacitly 
presupposed,  but  which  now  is  to  take  its  defini- 
tive place  on  our  list  of  sources  of  religious  insight, 
gives  me  my  best  opportunity  to  forestall  useless 
misunderstandings  by  putting  myself  upon  record 
as  to  the  precise  sense  in  which  both  the  new  source 
itself  and  everything  else  superhuman  and  super- 
natural to  which  religion  has  a  rational  right  to  ap- 
peal is,  to  my  mind,  a  reality,  and  is  a  source  or  an 
object  of  human  insight.  I  shall  therefore  explain 
the  two  adjectives  just  emphasised  by  giving  you 
a  somewhat  fuller  account  of  their  sense  than  I  have 
heretofore  stated.  If  the  new  account  touches  upon 
technical  matters,  I  hope  that,  by  our  long  list  of 
illustrations  of  the  superhuman  and  of  the  super- 
natural, we  have  now  sufficiently  prepared  the  way. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  259 

In  my  general  sketch  of  the  characteristics  of  hu- 
man nature  which  awaken  in  us  the  sense  of  our 
need  for  salvation,  I  laid  stress,  both  in  our  first  and 
in  our  second  lectures,  upon  our  narrowness  of  out- 
look as  one  principal  and  pervasive  defect  of  man 
as  he  naturally  is  constituted.  I  illustrated  this  nar- 
rowness by  some  of  its  most  practically  noteworthy 
instances.  Repeatedly  I  returned,  in  later  discus- 
sions, to  this  same  feature  of  our  life.  Now  man's 
narrowness  of  natural  outlook  upon  life  is  first  of 
all  due  to  something  which  I  have  to  call  the  "form" 
of  human  consciousness.  \Miat  I  mean  by  this 
form,  I  have  already  illustrated  to  you  freely  by 
the  very  instances  to  which  I  have  just  referred. 
But  technical  clearness  as  to  such  topics  is  hard  to 
attain.  Allow  me,  then,  to  insist  with  some  care 
upon  matters  which  are  as  influential  in  mould- 
ing our  whole  destiny  as  they  are  commonly  neg- 
lected in  our  discussions  of  the  problems  of  life  and 
of  reality. 

Man  can  attend  to  but  a  very  narrow  range  of  facts 
at  any  one  instant.  Common-sense  observation 
shows  you  this.  Psychological  experiment  empha- 
sises it  in  manifold  ways.  Listen  to  a  rhythmic 
series  of  beats — drum  beats — or  the  strokes  of  an 
engine,  or  the  feet  of  horses  passing  by  in  the  street. 
You  cannot  directly  grasp  with  entire  clearness  more 
than  a  very  brief  sequence  of  these  beats,  or  other 
sounds,  or  of  rhjlhmic  phrases  of  any  kind.  If  the 
rhythm  of  a  regularly  repeated  set  of  sounds  is  too 


260  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

long,  or  too  complex,  it  becomes  confused  for  you. 
You  cannot  make  out  by  your  direct  attention  what 
it  is  at  least  until  it  has  by  repetition  grown  familiar. 
Let  several  objects  be  brought  before  you  at  once. 
You  can  attend  to  one  and  then  to  another  at  pleas- 
ure if  only  they  stay  there  to  be  attended  to.  But 
only  a  very  few  distinct  objects  can  be  suddenly 
seen  at  once,  and  at  a  single  glance,  and  recognised, 
through  that  one  instantaneous  presentation,  for 
what  they  are.  If  the  objects  are  revealed  to  you 
in  the  darkness  by  an  electric  spark,  or  are  seen 
through  a  single  slit  in  a  screen  that  rapidly  moves 
before  your  eyes — so  that  the  objects  are  exposed  to 
your  observation  only  during  the  extremely  brief 
time  when  the  slit  passes  directly  between  them  and 
your  eyes — this  limit  of  your  power  to  grasp  several 
distinct  objects  at  once,  upon  a  single  inspection, 
can  be  experimentally  tested.  The  results  of  such 
experiments  concern  us  here  only  in  the  most  gen- 
eral way.  Enough — as  such  tests  show — what  one 
may  call  the  span  of  our  consciousness,  its  power  to 
grasp  many  facts  in  any  one  individual  moment  of 
our  lives,  is  extremely  limited.  It  is  limited  as  to 
the  number  of  simultaneously  presented  facts  that 
we  can  grasp  at  one  view,  can  distinguish,  and  recog- 
nise, and  hold  clearly  before  us.  It  is  also  limited 
with  regard  to  the  number  and  the  duration  of  the 
successive  facts  that  we  can  so  face  as  directly  to 
grasp  the  character  of  their  succession,  rhythmic  or 
otherwise. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  261 

Now  this  limitation  of  the  span  of  our  conscious- 
ness is,  I  repeat,  an  ever-present  defect  of  our  hu- 
man type  of  conscious  hfe.  That  is  why  I  call  it  a 
defect  in  the  "form"  of  our  conscious  life.  It  is 
not  a  defect  limited  to  the  use  of  any  one  of  our 
senses.  It  is  not  a  failure  of  eyes  or  of  ears  to  fur- 
nish to  us  a  sufficient  variety  of  facts  to  observe. 
On  the  contrary,  both  our  eyes  and  our  ears  almost 
constantly  rain  in  upon  us,  especially  during  our 
more  desultory  waking  life,  an  overwealth  of  im- 
pressions. If  we  want  to  know  facts,  and  to  attain 
clearness,  we  have  to  pick  out  a  few  of  these  im- 
pressions, from  instant  to  instant,  for  more  careful 
direct  inspection.  In  any  case,  then,  this  limita- 
tion is  not  due  to  the  defects  of  our  senses.  It  is 
our  whole  conscious  make-up,  our  characteristic  way 
of  becoming  aware  of  things,  which  is  expressed  by 
this  limitation  of  our  conscious  span.  On  this  plan 
our  human  consciousness  is  formed.  Thus  our  type 
of  awareness  is  constituted.  In  this  way  we  are  all 
doomed  to  live.  It  is  our  human  fate  to  grasp 
clearly  only  a  few  facts  or  ideas  at  any  one  instant. 
And  so,  being  what  we  are,  we  have  to  make  the 
best  of  our  human  nature. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  of  our  very  essence  as  reasonable 
beings  that  we  are  always  contending  with  the  con- 
sequences of  this  our  natural  narrowness  of  span. 
We  are  alw^ays  actively  rebelling  at  our  own  form 
of  consciousness,  so  long  as  we  are  trying  to  know 
or  to  do  anything  significant.     We  want  to  grasp 


262  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

many  things  at  once,  not  merely  a  few.  We  want 
to  survey  life  in  long  stretches,  not  merely  in  in- 
stantaneous glimpses.  We  are  always  like  beings 
who  have  to  see  our  universe  through  the  cracks 
that  our  successive  instants  open  before  us,  and  as 
quickly  close  again.  And  we  want  to  see  things,  not 
through  these  instantaneous  cracks,  but  without  in- 
tervening walls,  with  wide  outlook,  and  in  all  their 
true  variety  and  unity.  Nor  is  this  rebellion  of  ours 
against  the  mere  form  of  consciousness  any  merely 
idle  curiosity  or  peevish  seeking  for  a  barren  wealth 
of  varieties.  Salvation  itself  is  at  stake  in  this  strug- 
gle for  a  wider  clearness  of  outlook.  The  wisest 
souls,  as  we  have  throughout  seen,  agree  with  com- 
mon-sense prudence  in  the  desire  to  see  at  any  one 
instant  greater  varieties  of  ideas  and  of  objects  than 
our  form  of  consciousness  permits  us  to  grasp.  To 
escape  from  the  limitations  imposed  upon  us  by  the 
natural  narrowTiess  of  our  span  of  consciousness — 
by  the  form  of  consciousness  in  which  we  live — this 
is  the  common  interest  of  science  and  of  religion, 
of  the  more  contemplative  and  of  the  more  active 
aspects  of  our  higher  nature.  Ourforin  of  comciovS' 
ness  is  one  of  our  chief  human  sorrows. 

By  devices  such  as  the  rh;yi;hmic  presentation  of 
facts  to  our  attention  we  can  do  something — not 
very  much — to  enlarge  our  span  of  consciousness. 
But  for  most  purposes  we  can  make  only  an  indirect, 
not  a  direct,  escape  from  our  limitations  of  span. 
Our  salvation  depends  upon  the  winning  of  such 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  263 

indirect  successes.  Indirectly  we  escape,  in  so  far 
as  we  use  our  powers  of  habit-forming,  of  memory, 
and  of  abstraction,  to  prepare  for  us  objects  of  mo- 
mentary experience  such  as  have  come  to  acquire  for 
us  a  wide  range  of  meaning,  so  that,  when  we  get 
before  our  momentary  attention  but  a  few  of  these 
objects  at  once,  we  still  are  able  to  comprehend, 
after  our  human  fashion,  ranges  and  connections 
and  unities  of  fact  which  the  narrow  form  of  our 
span  of  consciousness  forbids  us  to  grasp  with 
directness.  Thus,  the  repetition  of  similar  experi- 
ences forms  habits  such  that  each  element  of  some 
new  instant  of  passing  experience  comes  to  us  sat- 
urated with  the  meaning  that,  as  we  look  back  upon 
our  past  life,  we  suppose  to  have  resulted  from  the 
whole  course  of  what  has  happened.  And  through 
such  endlessly  varied  processes  of  habit-forming, 
we  come  to  reach  stages  of  insight  in  which  the  in- 
stantaneous presentation  of  a  few  facts  gets  for  us, 
at  a  given  moment,  the  value  of  an  indirect  appre- 
ciation of  what  we  never  directly  grasp — that  is,  the 
value  of  a  wide  survey  of  life.  All  that  we  usually 
call  knowledge  is  due  to  such  indirect  grasping  of 
what  the  instant  can  only  hint  to  us,  although  we 
usually  feel  as  if  this  indirect  presentation  were  it- 
self a  direct  insight.  Let  me  exemplify:  The  odour 
of  a  flower  may  come  to  us  burdened  with  a  mean- 
ing that  we  regard  as  the  total  result  of  a  whole 
summer  of  our  life.  The  wrinkled  face  of  an  old 
man  reveals  to  us,  in  its  momentarily  presented 


264  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

traces,  the  signs  of  what  we  take  to  have  been  his 
lifetime's  experience  and  slowly  won  personal  char- 
acter. And,  in  very  much  the  same  way,  almost 
any  passing  experience  may  seem  to  us  to  speak  with 
the  voice  of  years,  or  even  of  ages,  of  human  life. 
To  take  yet  another  instance:  a  single  musical 
chord  epitomises  the  result  of  all  our  former  hear- 
ings of  the  musical  composition  which  it  introduces. 

In  this  way  we  live,  despite  our  narrowness,  as  if 
we  saw  widely;  and  we  constantly  view  as  if  it  were 
our  actual  experience,  a  sense  and  connection  of 
things  which  actually  never  gets  fully  translated 
in  any  moment  of  our  lives,  but  is  always  simply 
presupposed  as  the  interpretation  which  a  wider 
view  of  life  would  verify.  Thus  bounded  in  the 
nutshell  of  the  passing  instant,  we  count  ourselves 
(in  one  way  or  another,  and  whatever  our  opinions), 
kings  of  the  infinite  realm  of  experience,  or  would 
do  so  were  it  not  that,  like  Hamlet,  we  have  so 
many  "bad  dreams,"  which  make  us  doubt  the  cor- 
rectness of  our  interpretations,  and  feel  our  need 
of  an  escape  from  this  stubborn  natural  prison  of 
our  own  form  of  consciousness.  We  therefore  ap- 
peal, in  all  our  truth-seeking,  to  a  wider  view  than 
our  own  present  view. 

Our  most  systematic  mode  of  indirect  escape  from 
the  consequences  of  our  narrow  span  of  conscious- 
ness, is  the  mode  which  our  thinking  processes,  that 
is,  our  dealings  with  abstract  and  general  ideas  ex- 
emplify. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  265 

Such  abstract  and  general  ideas,  as  we  earlier  saw, 
are  means  to  ends — never  ends  in  themselves.  By 
means  of  generalisation  or  abstraction  we  can  grad- 
ually come  to  choose  signs  which  we  can  more  or 
less  successfully  substitute  for  long  series  of  presented 
objects  of  experience;  and  we  can  also  train  ourselves 
into  active  ways  of  estimating  or  of  describing  things 
— ways  such,  that  by  reminding  ourselves  of  these 
our  active  attitudes  toward  the  business  of  life, 
we  can  seem  to  ourselves  to  epitomise  in  an  instant 
the  sense  of  years  or  even  of  ages  of  human  expe- 
rience. Such  signs  and  symbols  and  attitudes  con- 
stitute our  store  of  general  and  abstract  ideas.  Our 
more  or  less  systematic  and  voluntary  thinking  is 
a  process  of  observing,  at  one  or  another  instant, 
the  connections  and  the  meanings  of  a  very  few  of 
these  our  signs  and  attitudes  at  once.  We  actively 
put  together  these  ideas  of  ours,  and  watch,  at  the 
instant,  the  little  connections  that  then  and  there 
are  able  to  appear,  despite  the  narrowness  of  our 
span  of  consciousness.  That,  for  instance,  is  what 
happens  when  we  add  up  columns  of  figures,  or 
think  out  a  problem,  or  plan  our  practical  lives. 
But  because  each  of  the  ideas  used,  each  of  these 
signs  or  symbols  or  attitudes,  can  be  more  or  less 
safely  substituted  for  some  vast  body  of  facts  of 
experience,  what  we  observe  only  in  and  through 
our  narrow  span  can  indirectly  help  us  to  appre- 
ciate something  whose  real  meaning  only  a  very 
wide  range  of  experience,   a  consciousness  whose 


266  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

span  is  enormously  vaster  than  ours,  could  possi- 
bly present  directly. 

Thus,  confined  to  our  own  form  and  span  of  con- 
sciousness as  we  are,  we  spend  our  lives  in  acquiring 
or  devising  ways  to  accomplish  indirectly  what  we 
are  forbidden  directly  to  attain,  namely,  the  dis- 
covery of  truth  and  of  meaning  such  as  only  a  con- 
sciousness of  another  form  than  ours  can  realise. 
Now,  as  I  maintained  in  our  third  and  fourth  lec- 
tures, the  whole  validity  and  value  of  this  indirect  pro- 
cedure of  ours  depends  upon  the  principle  that  such  a 
wider  view  of  things,  such  a  larger  unity  of  conscious- 
ness, such  a  direct  grasp  of  the  meanings  at  which  we 
indirectly  but  ceaselessly  aim  is  a  reality  in  the  uni- 
verse. As  I  there  maintained,  the  whole  reality  of 
the  universe  itself  must  he  defined,  in  terms  of  the 
reality  of  such  an  inclusive  and  direct  grasp  of  the 
whole  sense  of  things.  I  can  here  only  repeat  my 
opinion  that  this  thesis  is  one  which  nobody  can 
deny  without  self-contradiction. 

Now  the  difference  between  the  narrow  form  of 
consciousness  that  we  human  beings  possess  and 
the  wider  and  widest  forms  of  consciousness  whose 
reality  every  common-sense  effort  to  give  sense  to 
life,,  and  every  scientific  effort  to  discover  the  total 
verdict  of  experience  presupposes — the  difference, 
I  say,  between  these  two  forms  of  consciousness  is 
literally  expressed  by  calling  the  one  form  (the  form 
that  we  all  possess)  human,  and  by  calling  the  other 
form  (the  form  of  a  wider  consciousness  which  views 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  267 

experience  as  it  is)  su-perhuman.  The  wider  con- 
scious view  of  things  that  we  share  only  indirectly, 
through  the  devices  just  pointed  out,  is  certainly 
not  human;  for  no  mortal  man  ever  directly  possesses 
it.  It  is  real;  for,  as  we  saw  in  our  study  of  the 
reason,  if  you  deny  this  assertion  in  one  shape,  you 
reaffirm  it  in  another.  For  you  can  define  the 
truth  and  falsity  of  your  own  opinions  only  by  pre- 
supposing a  wader  view  that  sees  as  a  whole  what 
you  see  in  fragments.  That  unity  of  consciousness 
which  we  presuppose  in  all  our  indirect  efforts  to 
get  into  touch  with  its  direct  view  of  truth  is  above 
our  level.  It  includes  what  we  actually  get  before 
us  in  our  form  of  consciousness.  It  also  includes 
all  that  we  are  trying  to  grasp  indirectly.  Now 
what  is  not  human,  and  is  above  our  level,  and  in- 
cludes all  of  our  insight,  but  transcends  and  cor- 
rects our  indirect  efforts  by  its  direct  grasp  of  facts 
as  they  are,  can  best  be  called  superhuman.  The 
thesis  that  such  a  superhuman  consciousness  is  a  real- 
ity is  a  thesis  precisely  equivalent  to  the  assertion  that 
our  experience  has  any  real  sense  or  connection  tvhat- 
ever  beyond  the  mere  fragment  of  connectedness 
that,  at  any  one  instant,  we  directly  grasp. 

Furthermore,  to  call  such  a  larger  consciousness — 
inclusive  of  our  own,  but  differing  from  ours,  in 
form,  by  the  vastness  of  its  span  and  the  variety 
and  completeness  of  the  connections  that  it  surveys 
— to  call  it,  I  say,  a  supernatural  consciousness 
is  to  use  a  phraseology  that  can  be  very  deliber- 


268  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ately  and,  if  you  choose,  technically  defended.  By 
"natural"  we  mean  simply:  Subject  to  the  laws 
which  hold  for  the  sorts  of  beings  whose  character 
and  behaviour  our  empirical  sciences  can  study.  If 
you  suddenly  found  that  you  could  personally  and 
individually  and  clearly  grasp,  by  an  act  of  direct 
attention,  the  sense  and  connection  of  thousands  of 
experiences  at  once,  instead  of  the  three  or  four 
presented  facts  of  experience  whose  relations  you 
can  now  directly  observe  in  any  one  of  your  mo- 
ments of  consciousness,  you  would  indeed  say  that 
you  had  been  miraculously  transformed  into  an- 
other type  of  being  whose  insight  had  acquired  an 
angelic  sort  of  wealth  and  clearness.  But  when- 
ever you  assert  (as  every  scientific  theory,  and  every 
common-sense  opinion,  regarding  the  real  connec- 
tions of  the  facts  of  human  experience  requires  you 
to  assert),  that  not  only  thousands,  but  a  count- 
less collection  of  data  of  human  experience  actually 
possess  a  perfectly  coherent  total  sense  and  mean- 
ing, such  as  no  individual  man  ever  directly  observes, 
this  your  assertion,  which  undertakes  to  be  a  report 
of  facts,  and  which  explicitly  relates  to  facts  of  ex- 
perience, implies  the  assertion  that  there  exists  such 
a  superhuman  survey  of  the  real  nature  and  con- 
nection of  our  own  natural  realm  of  conscious  life. 
We  ourselves  are  strictly  limited  by  the  natural 
conditions  that  determine  our  own  form  of  conscious- 
ness. And  no  conditions  can  be  regarded  by  us  as 
more  characteristically  natural  than  are  these.     For 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  269 

us  human  beings  to  transcend  those  conditions,  by 
surveying  countless  data  at  once,  would  require  an 
uttermost  exception  to  the  natural  laws  which  are 
found  to  govern  our  human  type  of  consciousness. 
To  believe  that  any  man  ever  had  accomplished  the 
direct  survey  of  the  whole  range  of  the  physical  con- 
nections of  the  solar  and  stellar  systems  at  once — 
in  other  words,  had  grasped  the  whole  range  of  as- 
tronomical experience  in  a  single  act  of  attention — 
would  be  to  believe  that  a  most  incredible  miracle 
had  at  some  time  taken  place — an  incredible  mira- 
cle so  far  as  any  knowledge  that  we  now  possess 
enables  us  to  foresee  what  the  natural  conditions 
under  which  man  lives,  and  is,  in  human  form, 
conscious,  permit.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  to  ac- 
cept, as  we  all  do,  the  validity  of  that  scientific  in- 
terpretation of  the  data  of  human  experience  which 
astronomy  reports  is  to  acknowledge  that  such  an 
interpretation  more  or  less  completely  records  a 
system  of  facts  which  are  nothing  if  they  are  not 
in  some  definite  sense  empirical,  although,  in  their 
wholeness,  they  are  experienced  by  no  man.  That 
is,  the  acceptance  of  the  substantial  truth  of  as- 
tronomy involves  the  acknowledgment  that  some 
such,  to  us  simply  superhuman,  consciousness  is 
precisely  as  real  as  the  stars  are  real,  and  as  their 
courses,  and  as  all  their  relations  are  real.  Yet,  of 
course,  we  cannot  undertake  to  investigate  any  pro- 
cess such  as  would  enable  us  to  define  the  natural 
conditions  under  which  any  such  superhuman  sur- 


270  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

vey  of  astronomical  facts  would  become  psycholog- 
ically possible. 

The  acceptance  of  our  natural  sciences,  as  valid 
interpretations  of  connections  of  experience  which 
our  form  of  consciousness  forbids  us  directly  to  ver- 
ify, logically  presupposes,  at  every  step,  that  such 
superhuman  forms  and  unities  of  consciousness  are 
real.  For  the  facts  of  science  are  indefinable  ex- 
cept as  facts  in  and  for  a  real  experience.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  can  hope  for  no  advance  in 
physical  or  in  psychological  knowledge  which  would 
enable  us  to  bring  these  higher  forms  of  conscious- 
ness under  what  we  call  natural  laws.  So  the  super- 
human forms  of  consciousness  remain  for  us  also  su- 
pernatural. That  they  are,  we  must  acknowledge, 
if  any  assertion  whatever  about  our  world  is  to  be 
either  true  or  false.  For  all  assertions  are  made 
about  experience,  and  about  its  real  connections, 
and  about  its  systems.  But  what  conditions,  ivhat 
natural  causes,  bring  such  superhuman  forms  of 
consciousness  into  existence  we  are  unable  to  in- 
vestigate. For  every  assertion  about  nature  or 
about  natural  laws  presupposes  that  natural  facts 
and  laws  are  real  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  the  ob- 
jects known  to  such  higher  unities  of  consciousness. 
The  unities  in  question  are  themselves  no  natural 
objects;  while  all  natural  facts  are  objects  for  them 
and  are  expressions  of  their  meaning. 

Thus  definite  are  my  reasons  for  asserting  that 
forms  of  consciousness  superior  to  our  own  are  real, 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  271 

and  that  they  are  all  finally  united  in  a  single,  world- 
embracing  insight,  which  has  also  the  character  of 
expressing  a  world-will.  Thus  definite  are  also  my 
grounds  for  calling  such  higher  unities  of  conscious- 
ness both  superhuman  and  supernatural.  By  the 
term  "The  unity  of  the  spirit"  I  name  simply  the 
unity  of  meaning  which  belongs  to  these  superhuman 
forms  of  consciousness.  We  ourselves  partake  of 
this  unity,  and  share  it,  in  so  far  as,  in  our  lives 
also,  we  discover  and  express,  in  whatever  way  our 
own  form  of  consciousness  permits,  truth  and  life 
that  bring  us  into  touch  and  into  harmony  with 
the  higher  forms  of  consciousness,  that  is,  with  the 
spirit  which,  in  its  wholeness,  knows  and  estimates 
the  world,  and  which  expresses  itself  in  the  life  of 
the  world. 

Thus  near  are  we,  in  every  exercise  of  our  reason- 
able life,  to  the  superhuman  and  to  the  supernatural. 
Upon  the  other  hand,  there  is  positively  no  need  of 
magic,  or  of  miracle,  or  of  mysterious  promptings 
from  the  subconscious,  to  prove  to  us  the  reality 
of  the  human  and  of  the  supernatural,  or  to  define 
our  reasonable  relations  with  it.  And  the  essential 
difference  between  our  own  type  of  consciousness 
and  this  higher  life  is  a  difference  of  form,  and  is 
also  a  difference  of  content  precisely  in  so  far  as  its 
wider  and  widest  span  of  conscious  insight  implies 
that  the  superhuman  type  of  consciousness  possesses 
a  depth  of  meaning,  a  completeness  of  expression, 
a  wealth  of  facts,  a  clearness  of  vision,  a  successful 


272  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

embodiment  of  purpose  which,  in  view  of  the  nar- 
rowness of  our  form  of  consciousness,  do  not  belong 
to  us. 

Man  needs  no  miracles  to  show  him  the  super- 
natural and  the  superhuman.  You  need  no  signs 
and  wonders,  and  no  psychical  research,  to  prove 
that  the  unity  of  the  spirit  is  a  fact  in  the  world. 
Common-sense  tacitly  presupposes  the  reality  of  the 
unity  of  the  spirit.  Science  studies  the  ways  in 
which  its  life  is  expressed  in  the  laws  which  govern 
the  order  of  experience.  Reason  gives  us  insight 
into  its  real  being.  Loyalty  serves  it,  and  repents 
not  of  the  service.  Salvation  means  our  positive 
harmony  with  its  purpose  and  with  its  manifesta- 
tion. 

II 

Amongst  the  sources  of  insight  which  bring  us  into 
definite  and  practical  relations  with  that  spiritual 
world  whose  nature  has  now  been  again  defined,  one 
of  the  most  effective  is  the  life  and  the  word  of  other 
men  who  are  minded  to  be  loyal  to  genuine  causes, 
and  who  are  already,  through  the  service  of  their 
common  causes,  brought  together  in  some  form  of 
spiritual  brotherhood.  The  real  unity  of  the  life  of 
such  fellow-servants  of  the  Spirit  is  itself  an  instance 
of  a  superhuman  conscious  reality;  and  its  members 
are  devoted  to  bringing  themselves  into  harmony 
with  the  purposes  of  the  universe.    Any  brother- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  273 

hood  of  men  who  thus  loyally  live  in  the  Spirit  is, 
from  my  point  of  view,  a  brotherhood  essentially 
religious  in  its  nature,  precisely  in  proportion  as  it  is 
practically  moved  by  an  effort  to  serve — not  merely 
the  special  cause  to  which  its  members,  because  of 
their  training  and  their  traditions,  happen  to  be  de- 
voted, but  also  the  common  cause  of  all  the  loyal. 
Such  a  brotherhood,  so  far  as  it  is  indeed  human, 
and,  therefore  narrow,  may  not  very  expressly  de- 
fine what  this  common  cause  of  all  the  loyal  is,  for 
its  members  may  not  be  thoughtfully  reflective 
people.  But  if,  while  rejoicing  in  their  own  perfectly 
real  fraternal  unity,  they  are  also  practically  guided 
by  the  love  of  furthering  brotherhood  amongst  men 
in  general;  if  they  respect  the  loyalty  of  other  men 
so  far  as  they  understand  that  loyalty;  if  they  seek, 
not  to  sow  discord  amongst  the  brethren  of  our 
communities,  but  to  be  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  that  not 
only  cannot  be  hid,  but  is  also  a  model  for  other 
cities — a  centre  for  the  spreading  of  the  spirit  of 
loyalty — then  the  members  of  such  an  essentially 
fruitful  brotherhood  are  actually  loyal  to  the  cause 
of  causes.  They  are  a  source  of  insight  to  all  who 
know  of  their  life,  and  who  rightly  appreciate  its 
meaning.  And  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  loyalty. 
And  the  communities  which  such  men  form  and 
serve  are  essentially  religious  communities.  Each 
one  is  an  example  of  the  unity  of  the  Spirit.  Each 
one  stands  for  a  reality  that  belongs  to  the  super- 
human world. 


274  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

Since  the  variety  of  social  forms  which  appear 
under  human  conditions  is  an  unpredictably  vast 
variety,  and  since  the  motives  which  guide  men  are 
endlessly  complex,  different  communities  of  loyal 
people  may  possess  such  a  religious  character  and 
value  in  the  most  various  degrees.  For  it  results 
from  the  narrowness  of  the  human  form  of  conscious- 
ness that  men,  at  any  one  moment,  know  not  the 
whole  of  what  they  mean.  No  sharp  line  can  be 
drawn  sundering  the  brotherhoods  and  partnerships, 
and  other  social  organisations  which  men  devise, 
into  those  which  for  the  men  concerned  are  con- 
sciously religious,  and  those  which,  by  virtue  of 
their  absence  of  interest  in  the  larger  and  deeper 
loyalties  are  secular.  The  test  whereby  such  a  dis- 
tinction should  be  made  is  in  principle  a  definite 
test.  But  to  apply  the  test  to  every  possible  case 
requires  a  searching  of  human  hearts  and  a  just 
estimate  of  deeds  and  motives  whereto,  in  our  ig- 
norance, we  are  very  generally  inadequate. 

A  business  firm  would  seem  to  be,  in  general,  no 
model  of  a  religious  organisation.  Yet  it  justly  de- 
mands loyalty  from  its  members  and  its  servants. 
If  it  lives  and  acts  merely  for  gain,  it  is  secular  in- 
deed. But  if  its  business  is  socially  beneficent,  if 
its  cause  is  honourable,  if  its  dealings  are  honest,  if 
its  treatment  of  its  allies  and  rivals  is  such  as  makes 
for  the  confidence,  the  cordiality,  and  the  stability 
of  the  whole  commercial  life  of  its  community  and 
(when  its  influence  extends  so  far)  of  the  world,  if 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  275 

public  spirit  and  true  patriotism  inspire  its  doings, 
if  it  is  always  ready  on  occasion  to  sacrifice  gain  for 
honour's  sake — then  there  is  no  reason  why  it  may 
not  become  and  be  a  genuinely  and  fervently  reli- 
gious brotherhood.  Certainly  a  family  can  become 
a  rehgious  organisation;  and  some  of  the  most  an- 
cient traditions  of  mankind  have  demanded  that  it 
should  be  one.  There  is  also,  and  justly,  a  religion 
of  patriotism,  which  regards  the  country  as  a  di- 
vine institution.  Such  a  religion  serves  the  unity 
of  the  spirit  in  a  perfectly  genuine  way.  Some  of 
the  most  momentous  religious  movements  in  the 
world's  history  have  groun  out  of  such  an  idealised 
patriotism.  Christianity,  in  transferring  local  names 
from  Judea  to  a  heavenly  world,  has  borne  witness 
to  the  sacredness  that  patriotism,  upon  its  higher 
levels,  acquires. 

In  brief,  the  question  whether  a  given  human 
brotherhood  is  a  religious  institution  or  not  is  a 
question  for  that  brotherhood  to  decide  for  itself, 
subject  only  to  the  truth  about  its  real  motives. 
Has  its  cause  the  characters  that  mark  a  fitting 
cause  of  loyalty?  Does  it  so  serve  its  cause  as 
thereby  to  further  the  expression  of  the  divine  unity 
of  the  spirit  in  the  form  of  devoted  human  lives,  not 
only  within  its  ovm.  brotherhood,  but  as  widely  as 
its  influence  extends?  Then  it  is  an  essentially  re- 
ligious organisation.  Nor  does  the  extent  of  its 
worldly  influence  enable  you  to  decide  how  far  it 
meets  these  requirements.     Nor  yet  does  the  num- 


276  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

ber  of  persons  in  its  membership  form  any  essential 
criterion.  Wherever  two  or  three  are  gathered  to- 
gether, and  are  Hving  as  they  can  in  the  Spirit  that 
the  divine  will  (which  wills  the  loyal  union  of  all 
mankind)  requires  of  them — there,  indeed,  the  work 
of  the  Spirit  is  done;  and  the  organisation  in  ques- 
tion is  a  religious  brotherhood.  It  needs  no  human 
sanction  to  make  it  such.  Though  it  dwell  on  a 
desert  island,  and  though  all  its  members  soon  die 
and  are  forgotten  of  men,  its  loyal  deeds  are  irrevo- 
cable facts  of  the  eternal  world;  and  the  universal 
life  knows  that  here  at  least -the  divine  will  is  ex- 
pressed in  human  acts. 

But  so  far  as  such  communities  both  exist  and  are 
distinctly  recognisable  as  religious  in  their  life  and 
intent,  they  form  a  source  of  religious  insight  to  all 
who  come  under  their  influence.  Such  a  source  acts 
as  a  means  whereby  any  or  all  of  our  previous 
sources  may  be  opened  to  us,  may  become  effective, 
may  bear  fruit.  Hence,  in  this  new  source,  we  find 
the  croivning  source  of  religious  insight. 

This  last  statement  is  one  which  is  accepted  by 
many  who  would  nevertheless  limit  its  application 
to  certain  religious  communities,  and  to  those  only; 
or  who,  in  some  cases,  would  limit  its  application  to 
some  one  religious  community.  There  are,  for  in- 
stance, many  who  say,  for  various  special  reasons, 
that  the  crowning  source  of  religious  insight  is  the 
visible  church.  By  this  term  those  who  use  it  in 
any  of  its  traditional  senses,  mean  one  religious  in- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  277 

stitution  only,  or  at  most  only  a  certain  group  of  re- 
ligious organisations.  The  visible  church  is  a  reli- 
gious organisation,  or  group  of  such  organisations, 
which  is  characterised  by  certain  traditions,  by  a 
certain  real  or  supposed  history,  by  a  more  or  less 
well-defined  creed,  and  by  further  assertions  con- 
cerning the  divine  revelation  to  which  it  owes  its 
origin  and  authority.  With  the  doctrinal  questions 
involved  in  the  understanding  of  this  definition,  these 
lectures,  as  you  now  well  know,  have  no  direct  con- 
cern. It  is  enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  say 
that  the  visible  church  thus  defined  is  indeed,  and 
explicitly,  and  in  our  present  sense,  a  religious  or- 
ganisation. In  all  those  historical  forms  which  here 
concern  us,  the  visible  church  has  undertaken  to 
show  men  the  way  to  salvation.  It  has  carried  out 
its  task  by  uniting  its  members  in  a  spiritual  broth- 
erhood. It  has  in  ideal  extended  its  interest  to  all 
mankind.  It  has  aimed  at  universal  brotherhood. 
It  has  defined  and  called  out  loyalty.  It  has  con- 
ceived this  loyalty  as  a  service  of  God  and  as  a 
loyalty  to  the  cause  of  all  mankind.  Its  traditions, 
the  lives  of  its  servants,  its  services,  its  teachings, 
have  been  and  are  an  inexhaustible  source  of  reli- 
gious insight  to  the  vast  multitudes  whom  it  has  in- 
fluenced and,  in  its  various  forms  and  embodiments, 
still  influences.  Not  unnaturally,  therefore,  those 
who  accept  its  own  doctrines  regarding  its  origin 
and  history  view  such  a  visible  church  not  only  as 
by  far  the  most  important  source  of  religious  in- 


278  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

sight,  but  also  as  a  source  occupying  an  entirely 
unique  position. 

The  deUberate  limitations  of  the  undertaking  of 
these  lectures  forbid  me,  as  I  have  just  reminded 
you,  to  consider  in  any  detail  this  supposed  unique- 
ness of  the  position  which  so  many  of  you  will  as- 
sign to  some  form  of  the  historical  Christian  church. 
After  what  I  have  said  as  to  the  nature  and  the 
variety  of  the  forms  which  the  spiritual  life  has 
taken,  and  still  takes,  amongst  men,  you  will  never- 
theless not  be  surprised  if,  without  attempting  to 
judge  the  correctness  of  the  traditions  of  the  visible 
church,  I  forthwith  point  out  that,  to  the  higher  re- 
ligious life  of  mankind  the  life  of  the  visible  church 
stands  related  as  part  to  whole;  and  that  very  vast 
ranges  of  the  higher  religious  life  of  mankind  have 
grown  and  flourished  outside  of  the  influence  of 
Christianity.  And  when  the  religious  life  of  man- 
kind is  viewed  in  its  historical  connections,  truth 
requires  us  to  insist  that  Christianity  itself  has  been 
dependent  for  its  insight  and  its  power  upon  many 
different  sources,  some  of  which  assumed  human 
form  not  only  long  before  Christianity  came  into 
being,  but  in  nations  and  in  civilisations  which  were 
not  dependent  for  their  own  spiritual  wealth  upon 
the  Jewish  religious  traditions  that  Christianity 
itself  undertook  to  transform  and  to  assimilate. 
Christianity  is,  in  its  origins,  not  only  Jewish  but 
Hellenic,  both  as  to  its  doctrines  and  as  to  its  type 
of  spirituality.    It  is  a  synthesis  of  religious  motives 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  279 

which  had  their  sources  widely  spread  throughout 
the  pre-Christian  world  of  Hellenism.  Its  own  in- 
sight is  partly  due  to  the  non-Christian  world. 

As  a  fact,  then,  the  unity  of  the  Spirit,  the  reli- 
gious life  which  has  been  and  is  embodied  in  the  form 
of  human  fraternities,  is  the  peculiar  possession  of 
no  one  time,  or  nation,  and  belongs  to  no  unique 
and  visible  church.  Yet  such  an  unity  is  a  source 
of  religious  insight.  We  have  a  right  to  use  it  wher- 
ever we  find  it  and  however  it  becomes  accessible 
to  us.  As  a  fact,  we  all  use  such  insight  without 
following  any  one  principle  as  to  the  selection  of  the 
historical  sources.  Socrates  and  Plato  and  Sopho- 
cles are  religious  teachers  from  whom  we  have  all 
directly  or  indirectly  learned,  whether  we  know  it 
or  not.  Our  owti  Germanic  ancestors,  and  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  Roman  Empire,  have  influenced  our 
tyjpe  of  loyalty  and  have  taught  us  spiritual  truth 
that  we  should  not  otherwise  know. 

Moreover,  that  which  I  have  called  the  cause  of 
all  the  loyal,  the  real  unity  of  the  whole  spiritual 
world,  is  not  merely  a  moral  ideal.  It  is  a  reli- 
gious reality.  Its  servants  and  ministers  are  present 
wherever  religious  brotherhood  finds  sincere  and 
hearty  manifestation.  In  the  sight  of  a  perfectly 
real  but  superhuman  knowledge  of  the  real  pur- 
poses and  effective  deeds  of  mankind,  all  the  loyal, 
whether  they  individually  know  the  fact  or  not,  are, 
and  in  all  times  have  been,  one  genuine  and  religious 
brotherhood.    Human   narrowness   and   the   vicissi- 


280  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

tudes  of  the  world  of  time  have  hidden,  and  still 
hide,  the  knowledge  of  this  community  of  the  loyal 
from  human  eyes.  But  indirectly  it  comes  to  light 
w^henever  the  loyalty  of  one  visible  spiritual  com- 
munity comes,  through  any  sort  of  tradition,  or  cus- 
tom, or  song  or  story,  or  wise  w^ord  or  noble  deed,  to 
awaken  new  manifestations  of  the  loyal  life  in  faith- 
ful souls  anj'where  amongst  men. 

/  call  the  community  of  all  who  have  sought  for  sal- 
vation through  loyalty  the  Invisible  Church.  What 
makes  it  invisible  to  us  is  our  ignorance  of  the  facts 
of  human  history  and,  still  more,  our  narrowness  in 
our  appreciation  of  spiritual  truth.  And  I  merely 
report  the  genuine  facts,  human  and  superhuman, 
when  I  say  that  whatever  any  form  of  the  visible  church 
has  done  or  will  do  for  the  religious  life  of  mankind, 
the  crowning  source  of  religious  insight  is,  for  u^  all, 
the  actual  loyalty,  service,  devotion,  suffering,  accom- 
plishment, traditions,  example,  teaching,  and  triumphs 
of  the  invisible  church  of  all  the  faithful.  And  by  the 
invisible  church  I  mean  the  brotherhood  consisting 
of  all  who,  in  any  clime  or  land,  live  in  the  Spirit. 

Our  terms  have  now  been,  so  far  as  my  time  per- 
mits, sharply  defined.  I  am  here  not  appealing  to 
vague  sentiments  about  human  brotherhood,  or  to 
merely  moral  ideals  about  what  we  merely  hope  that 
man  may  yet  come  to  be.  And  I  am  not  for  a  mo- 
ment committing  myself  to  any  mere  worship  of 
humanity,  so  long  as  one  conceives  humanity  as  the 
mere  collection  of  those  who  are  subject  to  the  nat- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  281 

ural  laws  that  govern  our  present  physical  and  men- 
tal existence.  Humanity,  viewed  as  a  mere  product 
of  nature,  is  narrow-minded  and  degraded  enough. 
Its  life  is  full  of  uncomprehended  evils  and  of  mu- 
tual misunderstandings.  It  is  not  a  fitting  object 
of  any  religious  reverence.  But  it  needs  salvation. 
It  has  been  finding  salvation  through  loyalty.  And 
the  true  cause,  the  genuine  community,  the  real 
spiritual  brotherhood  of  the  loyal  is  a  superhuman 
and  not  merely  a  human  reality.  It  expresses  it- 
self in  the  lives  of  the  loval.  In  so  far  as  these  ex- 
pressions  directly  or  indirectly  inspire  our  own  gen- 
uine loyalty,  they  give  us  insight.  Of  such  insight, 
whatever  you  may  learn  from  communion  with  any 
form  of  the  visible  church,  is  an  instance — a  special 
embodiment.  The  invisible  church,  then,  is  no  mere- 
ly human  and  secular  institution.  It  is  a  real  and 
superhuman  organisation.  It  includes  and  trans- 
cends every  form  of  the  visible  church.  It  is  the 
actual  subject  to  which  belong  all  the  spiritual  gifts 
which  we  can  hope  to  enjoy.  If  your  spiritual  eyes 
were  open,  no  diversity  of  human  tongues,  no 
strangeness  of  rites  or  of  customs  or  of  other  forms 
of  service,  no  accidental  quaintnesses  of  tradition  or 
of  sjTnbols  or  of  creeds,  would  hide  from  your  vision 
its  perfections.  It  believes  everj^^here  in  the  unity 
of  the  Spirit,  and  aims  to  save  men  through  winning 
them  over  to  the  conscious  service  of  its  own  unity. 
And  it  grants  you  the  free  grace  of  whatever  reli- 
gious insight  you  can  acquire  from  outside  yourself. 


282  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

If  you  are  truly  religious,  you  live  in  it  and  for  it. 
You  conceive  its  life  in  your  own  way  and,  no  doubt, 
under  the  limitations  of  your  own  time  and  creed. 
But  you  cannot  flee  from  its  presence.  And  your 
salvation  lies  in  its  reality,  in  your  service,  and  in 
your  communion  with  its  endlessly  varied  company 
of  those  who  suffer  and  who  in  the  might  of  the  spirit 
overcome. 

Let  me  tell  you  something  of  this  life  of  the  invis- 
ible church. 


Ill 


And  first  let  me  speak  of  its  membership.  We 
have  now  repeatedly  defined  the  test  of  such  mem- 
bership. The  invisible  church  is  the  spiritual  broth- 
erhood of  the  loyal.  Only  a  searcher  of  hearts  can 
quite  certainly  know  who  are  the  really  loyal.  We 
can  be  sure  regarding  the  nature  of  loyalty.  That 
loyalty  itself  should  come  to  men's  consciousness  in 
the  most  various  forms  and  degrees,  and  clouded  by 
the  most  tragic  misunderstandings,  the  narrow^  form 
of  human  consciousness,  and  the  blindness  and  va- 
riety of  human  passion,  make  necessary. 

If  one  is  loyal  to  a  narrow  and  evil  cause,  as  the 
robber  or  the  pirate  may  be  loyal  to  his  band  or  to 
his  ship,  a  conscious  effort  to  serve  the  unity  of  the 
whole  spiritual  world  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  be 
excluded  by  the  nature  of  the  loyalty  in  question. 
But  what  makes  a  cause  evil,  and  unworthy  of  loyal 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  283 

service,  is  the  fact  that  its  service  is  destructive  of 
the  causes  of  other  men,  so  that  the  evil  cause  preys 
upon  the  loyalty  of  the  spiritual  brethren  of  those 
who  serve  it,  and  so  that  thereby  the  servants  of 
this  cause  do  actual  wrong  to  mankind.  But  this 
very  fact  may  not  be  understood  by  the  individual 
robber  or  pirate.  He  may  be  devoted  with  all  his 
heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength  to  the  best 
cause  that  he  knows.  He  may  therefore  sincerely 
conceive  that  the  master  of  life  authorises  his  cause. 
In  that  case,  and  so  far  as  this  belief  is  sincere,  the 
robber  or  pirate  may  be  a  genuinely  religious  man. 

Does  this  statement  seem  to  you  an  absurd  quib- 
ble? Then  look  over  the  past  history  of  mankind. 
Some  at  least  of  the  Crusaders  were  genuinely  re- 
ligious. That  we  all  readily  admit.  But  they  were 
obviously,  for  the  most  part,  robbers  and  murderers, 
and  sometimes  pirates,  of  what  we  should  now  think 
the  least  religious  typ^  if  they  were  to-day  sailing 
the  Mediterranean  or  devastating  the  lands.  Read 
in  "Hakluyt's  Voyages"  the  accounts  of  the  spirit 
in  which  the  English  explorers  and  warriors  of  the 
Elizabethan  age  accomplished  their  great  work.  In 
these  accounts  a  genuinely  religious  type  of  patri- 
otism and  of  Christianity  often  expresses  itself  side 
by  side  with  a  reckless  hatred  of  the  Spaniard  and 
a  ferocity  which  tolerates  the  most  obvious  expres- 
sions of  mere  natural  greed.  These  heroes  of  the 
beginnings  of  the  British  Empire  often  hardly  knew 
whether  they  were   rather  the   adventurous  mer- 


284  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

chants,  or  the  loyal  warriors  for  England,  or  the 
defenders  of  the  Christian  faith,  or  simply  pirates. 
In  fact  they  were  all  these  things  at  once.  Con- 
sider the  Scottish  clans  as  they  were  up  to  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  spirit  that  they  fostered 
has  since  found  magnificent  expression  in  the  loy- 
alty of  the  Scottish  people  and  in  its  later  and  far- 
reaching  service  of  some  of  the  noblest  causes  that 
men  know.  Yet  these  clans  loved  cattle-thieving 
and  tortured  their  enemies.  When  did  they  begin 
to  be  really  patriots  and  servants  of  mankind? 
When  did  they  begin  to  be  truly  and  heartily  reli- 
gious?   Who  of  us  can  tell? 

Greed  and  blindness  are  natural  to  man.  His 
form  of  consciousness  renders  him  unable,  in  many 
cases,  to  realise  their  unreasonableness,  even  when 
he  has  already  come  into  sincerely  spiritual  rela- 
tions with  the  cause  of  all  the  loyal.  What  we  can- 
know  is  that  greed  and  blindness  are  never  of 
themselves  religious,  and  that  the  way  of  salvation 
is  the  way  of  loyalty.  But  I  know  not  what  de- 
grees of  greedy  blindness  are  consistent  with  an  ac- 
tual membership  in  the  invisible  church,  as  I  have 
just  defined  its  membership.  When  I  meet,  how- 
ever, with  the  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  uni- 
versal loyalty,  whether  in  clansman,  or  in  crusader, 
or  in  Elizabethan  and  piratical  English  defender  of 
his  country's  faith,  or  in  the  Spaniard  whom  he 
hated,  I  hope  that  I  may  be  able  to  use,  not  the 
greed  or  the  passions  of  these  people,  but  their  re- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  285 

ligious  prowess,  their  free  surrender  of  themselves 
to  their  cause,  as  a  source  of  insight. 

Membership  in  the  invisible  church  is  therefore 
not  to  be  determined  by  mere  conventions,  but  by 
the  inward  spirit  of  the  faithful,  as  expressed  in 
their  loyal  life  according  to  their  lights.  Yet  of 
those  who  seem  to  us  most  clearly  to  belong  to  the 
service  of  the  spirit,  it  is  easy  to  enumerate  certain 
very  potent  groups,  to  whose  devotion  we  all  owe 
an  unspeakably  great  debt.  The  sages,  the  poets, 
the  prophets,  whose  insight  we  consulted  in  our 
opening  lecture,  and  have  used  throughout  these 
discourses,  form  such  groups.  It  is  indifferent  to 
us  to  what  clime  or  land  or  tongue  or  visible  reli- 
gious body  they  belonged  or  to-day  belong.  They 
have  sincerely  served  the  cause  of  the  spirit.  They 
are  to  us  constant  sources  of  religious  insight.  Even 
the  cynics  and  the  rebels,  whom  we  cited  in  our 
opening  lecture,  have  been,  in  many  individual 
cases,  devoutly  religious  souls  who  simply  could  not 
see  the  light  as  they  consciously  needed  to  see  it, 
and  who  loyally  refused  to  lie  for  convention's  sake. 
Such  have  often  served  the  cause  of  the  spirit  with 
a  fervour  that  you  ill  understand  so  long  as  their 
words  merely  shock  you.  They  often  seem  as  if 
they  were  hostile  to  the  unity  of  the  spirit.  But, 
in  many  cases,  it  is  the  narrowness  of  our  nature, 
the  chaos  of  our  unspiritual  passions,  the  barren 
formalism  of  our  conventions  that  they  assail.  And 
such  assaults  turn  our  eyes  upward  to  the  unity  of 


286  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

the  spirit  from  whence  alone  consolation  and  es- 
cape may  come.  Indirectly,  therefore,  such  souls 
are  often  the  misunderstood  prophets  of  new  ways 
of  salvation  for  men.  When  they  are  loyal,  when 
their  very  hardness  is  due  to  their  resolute  truth- 
fulness, they  are  often  amongst  the  most  effective 
friends  of  a  deeper  religious  life. 

A  notable  criterion  whereby,  quite  apart  from 
mere  conventions,  you  may  try  the  spirits  that  pre- 
tend or  appear  to  be  religious,  and  may  discern  the 
members  of  the  invisible  church  from  those  who  are 
not  members,  is  the  criterion  of  the  prophet  Amos: 
"Woe  unto  them  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion."  This, 
as  I  said  earlier,  is  one  of  the  favourite  tests  applied 
by  moralists  for  distinguishing  those  who  serve 
from  those  who  merely  enjoy.  That  it  is  also  a  re- 
ligious test,  and  why  it  is  a  religious  test,  our  ac- 
quaintance with  the  spirit  of  loyalty  has  shown  us. 
Religion,  when  triumphant,  includes,  indeed,  the  ex- 
perience of  inward  peace;  but  the  peace  which  is 
not  won  through  strenuous  loyal  service  is  deceit- 
ful and  corrupting.  It  is  the  conquest  over  and 
through  tribulation  which  saves.  Whoever  con- 
ceives rehgion  merely  as  a  comfortable  release  from 
sorrows,  as  an  agreeable  banishment  of  cares,  as  a 
simple  escape  from  pain,  knows  not  what  evil  is,  or 
what  our  human  nature  is,  or  what  our  need  of  sal- 
vation means,  or  what  the  will  of  the  master  of  life 
demands.  Therefore,  a  visible  church  that  appears 
simply  in  the  form  of  a  cure  for  worry,  or  a  preven- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  287 

tive  of  trouble,  seems  to  me  to  be  lacking  in  a  full 
sense  of  what  loyalty  is.  Worry  is  indeed,  in  itself, 
not  a  religious  exercise.  But  it  is  often  an  effective 
preliminary,  and  is  sometimes,  according  to  the  vi- 
cissitudes of  natural  temper,  a  relatively  harmless 
accompaniment,  to  a  deeply  religious  life.  Certainly 
the  mere  absence  of  worry,  the  mere  attainment 
of  a  sensuous  tranquillity,  is  no  criterion  of  mem- 
bership in  the  invisible  church.  Better  a  cynic 
or  a  rebel  against  conventional  religious  forms,  or 
a  pessimist,  or  a  worrying  soul,  if  only  such  a  being 
is  strenuously  loyal  according  to  his  lights,  than  one 
to  whom  religion  means  simply  a  tranquil  adoration 
without  loyalty.  But,  of  course,  many  of  the  tran- 
quil are  also  loyal.  WTien  this  is  true  we  can  only 
rejoice  in  their  attainments. 

If  we  look  for  other  examples  still  of  types  of 
spirituality  which  seem  to  imply  membership  in  the 
invisible  church,  I  myself  know  of  few  better  in- 
stances of  the  genuinely  religious  spirit  than  those 
which  are  presented  to  us,  in  recent  times,  by  the 
more  devoted  servants  of  the  cause  of  any  one  of  the 
advancing  natural  sciences.  And  such  instances  are 
peculiarly  instructive,  because  many  great  men  of 
science,  as  a  result  of  their  personal  temperament 
and  training,  are  little  interested  in  the  forms  of  the 
visible  church,  and  very  frequently  are  loath  to  ad- 
mit that  their  calling  has  religious  bearings.  But 
when  the  matter  is  rightly  viewed,  one  sees  that  the 
great  scientific  investigator  is  not  only  profoundly 


288  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

loyal,  but  serves  a  cause  which,  at  the  present  time, 
probably  does  more  to  unify  every  sort  of  wholesome 
human  activity,  to  bind  in  one  all  the  higher  inter- 
ests of  humanity,  to  bring  men  of  various  lands  and 
races  close  together  in  spirit  than  does  any  other 
one  special  cause  that  modern  men  serve.  The  cause 
of  any  serious  scientific  investigator  is,  from  my 
point  of  view,  a  superhuman  cause,  for  precisely  the 
reasons  which  I  have  already  explained  to  you. 

The  individual  scientific  worker,  uninterested  as 
he  usually  is  in  metaphysics,  and  unconcerned  as  he 
often  is  about  the  relation  of  his  task  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  visible  church,  knows  indeed  that  with  all 
his  heart,  and  soul,  and  mind,  and  strength  he  serves 
a  cause  that  he  conceives  to  be  worthy.  He  knows, 
also,  that  this  cause  is  beneficent,  and  that  it  plays 
a  great  part  in  the  directing  of  human  activities, 
whether  because  his  science  already  has  practical  ap- 
plications, or  because  the  knowledge  of  nature  is  in 
itself  an  elevating  and  enlarging  influence  for  man- 
kind. The  scientific  investigator  knows  also  that, 
while  his  individual  experience  is  the  source  to 
which  he  personally  looks  for  new  observations  of 
facts,  his  private  observations  contribute  to  science 
only  in  so  far  as  other  investigators  can  verify  his 
results.  Hence  his  whole  scientific  life  consists  in 
submitting  all  his  most  prized  discoveries  to  the 
rigid  test  of  an  estimate  that  belongs  to  no  individ- 
ual human  experience,  but  that  is,  or  that  through 
loyal  efforts  tends  to  become,  the  common  possession 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  289 

of  the  organised  experience  of  all  the  workers  in  his 
field.  So  far  the  devoted  investigator  goes  in  his 
own  consciousness  as  to  his  work. 

Beyond  this  point,  in  estimating  his  ideals  and 
his  value,  he  sometimes  seems  not  to  wish  to  go, 
either  because  he  is  unreflective  or  because  he  is 
modest.  But  when  we  remember  that  the  unity  of 
human  experience,  in  the  light  of  which  scientific 
results  are  tested,  and  to  whose  growth  and  enrich- 
ment the  scientific  worker  is  devoted,  is  indeed  a 
superhuman  reality  of  the  type  that  we  have  now 
discussed;  when  we  also  recall  the  profound  values 
which  the  scientific  ideal  has  for  all  departments  of 
human  life  in  our  day;  when,  further,  we  see  how 
resolutely  the  true  investigator  gives  his  all  to  con- 
tribute to  what  is  really  the  unity  of  the  spirit, 
we  may  well  wonder  who  is  in  essence  more  heartily 
religious  than  the  completely  devoted  scientific  in- 
vestigator— such  a  man,  for  instance,  as  was  Fara- 
day. 

When  I  have  the  fortune  to  hear  of  really  great 
scientific  workers  who  are  as  ready  to  die  for  their 
science  (if  an  experiment  or  an  observation  requires 
risk)  as  to  live  for  it  through  years  of  worldly  pri- 
vation and  of  rigid  surrender  of  private  interests  to 
truth,  and  when  I  then  by  chance  also  hear  that 
some  of  them  were  called,  or  perhaps  even  called 
themselves,  irreligious  men,  I  confess  that  I  think 
of  the  little  girl  who  walked  by  Wordsworth's  side 
on  the  beach  at  Calais.    The  poet  estimated  her 


290  Sources  of  Religious  huight 

variety  of  religious  experience  in  words  that  I  feel 
moved  to  apply  to  the  ardently  loyal  hero  of  science : 

"Thou  dwellest  in  Abraham's  bosom  all  the  year, 
And  worsliip'st  at  the  temple's  inmost  shrine, 
God  being  with  thee  when  we  know  it  not." 

There  also  exists  a  somewhat  threadbare  verse  of 
the  poet  Young  which  tells  us  how  "the  undevout 
astronomer  is  mad."  I  should  prefer  to  say  that  the 
really  loyal  scientific  man  who  imagines  himself  un- 
devout is  not  indeed  mad  at  all,  but,  like  Words- 
worth's young  companion  at  Calais,  unobservant  of 
himself  and  of  the  wondrous  and  beautiful  love  that 
inspires  him.  For  he  is,  indeed,  inspired  by  a  love 
for  something  much  more  divine  than  is  that  au- 
gust assemblage  of  mechanical  and  physical  phe- 
nomena called  the  starry  heavens.  The  soul  of  his 
work  is  the  service  of  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  one 
of  its  most  exalted  forms. 

That  all  who,  belonging  to  any  body  of  the  visible 
church,  are  seriously  loyal  to  the  divine  according 
to  their  lights,  are  members  also  of  the  invisible 
church,  needs,  after  what  I  have  said,  no  further 
explanation. 

But  if,  surveying  this  multitude  that  no  man  can 
number  from  every  kindred,  and  tribe,  and  nation, 
and  tongue,  you  say  that  entrance  to  the  invisible 
church  is  guarded  by  barriers  that  seem  to  you  not 
high  enough  or  strong  enough,  I  reply  that  this 
membership  is  indeed  tested  by  the  severest  of  rules. 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  291 

Do  you  serve  with  all  your  heart,  and  soul,  and 
mind,  and  strength  a  cause  that  is  superhuman  and 
that  is  indeed  divine?  This  is  the  question  which 
all  have  to  answer  who  are  to  enter  this  the  most 
spiritual  of  all  human  brotherhoods. 


IV 

The  invisible  church  is  to  be  to  us  a  source  of  in- 
sight. This  means  that  we  must  enter  into  some 
sort  of  communion  with  the  faithful  if  we  are  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  insight.  And,  apart  from 
one's  own  life  of  loyal  service  itself,  the  principal 
means  of  grace — that  is,  the  principal  means  of  at- 
taining instruction  in  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  encour- 
agement in  its  toils,  solace  in  its  sorrows,  and  power 
to  endure  and  to  triumph — the  principal  means  of 
grace,  I  say,  which  is  open  to  any  man  lies  in 
such  communion  with  the  faithful  and  with  the 
unity  of  the  spirit  which  they  express  in  their  lives. 
It  is  natural  that  we  should  begin  this  process  of 
communion  through  direct  personal  relations  with 
the  fellow-servants  of  our  own  special  cause.  Hence 
whatever  is  usually  said  by  those  who  belong  to  any 
section  of  the  visible  church  regarding  the  spiritual 
advantages  which  follow  from  entering  the  commun- 
ion of  their  own  body  may  be  accepted,  from  our 
present  point  of  view,  as  having  whatever  truth  the 
devotion  and  the  religious  life  of  any  one  body  of 
faithful  servants  of  the  unity  of  the  spirit  may  give 


292  Sources  of  Religions  Insight 

to  such  statements  when  applied  precisely  to  their 
own  members.  But  to  us  all  alike  the  voice  of  the 
invisible  church  speaks — it  sustains  us  all  alike  by 
its  counsels,  not  merely  in  so  far  as  our  own  personal 
cause  and  our  brethren  of  that  service  are  known 
to  us,  but  in  so  far  as  we  are  ready  to  understand 
the  loyal  life,  and  to  be  inspired  by  it,  even  when 
those  who  exemplify  its  intents  and  its  values  are 
far  from  us  in  their  type  of  experience  and  in  the 
manner  of  their  service. 

You  remember  the  rule  of  loyalty:  "So  serve  your 
cause  that  if  possible  through  your  service  every- 
body whom  you  influence  shall  be  rendered  a  more 
devoted  servant  of  his  own  cause,  and  thereby  of 
the  cause  of  causes — the  unity  of  all  the  loyal." 
Now  the  rule  for  using  the  invisible  church  as  a 
source  of  insight  is  this:  "So  be  prepared  to  in- 
terpret, and  sympathetically  to  comprehend,  the 
causes  and  the  service  of  other  men,  that  whoever 
serves  the  cause  of  causes,  the  unity  of  all  the  loyal, 
may  even  thereby  tend  to  help  you  in  your  per- 
sonal service  of  your  own  special  cause."  To  cul- 
tivate the  comprehension  and  the  reverence  for  loy- 
alty, however,  and  wherever  loyalty  may  be  found, 
is  to  prepare  yourself  for  a  fitting  communion  with 
the  invisible  church. 

And  in  such  communion  I  find  the  crowning 
source  of  religious  insight.  What  I  say  is  wholly 
consistent  then  with  the  recognition  of  the  precious- 
ness  of  the  visible  church  to  its  members.    Once  more. 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  293 

however,  I  point  out  the  fact  that  the  visible  church 
is  as  precious  as  it  is  because  it  is  indeed  devoted  to 
the  unity  of  the  spirit,  that  is,  because  it  is  a  part 
and  an  organ  of  the  invisible  church. 


I  cannot  close  this  extremely  imperfect  sketch  of 
our  crowning  source  of  insight  without  applying  to 
our  present  doctrine  of  the  invisible  church,  the 
eternally  true  teaching  of  St.  Paul  regarding  spirit- 
ual gifts. 

As  Paul's  Corinthians,  in  their  little  conmiunity, 
faced  the  problem  of  the  diversity  of  the  gifts  and 
powers  whereby  their  various  members  undertook 
to  serve  the  common  cause — as  this  diversity  of 
gifts  tended  from  the  outset  to  doctrinal  differences 
of  opinion,  as  the  differences  threatened  to  confuse 
loyalty  by  bringing  brethren  into  conflict — even  so, 
but  with  immeasurably  vaster  complications,  the 
whole  religious  world,  the  invisible  community  of 
the  loyal,  has  always  faced,  and  still  faces,  a  diver- 
sity of  powers  and  of  forms  of  insight,  a  diversity 
due  to  the  endlessly  various  temperaments,  capaci- 
ties and  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  The  Corin- 
thian church,  as  Paul  sketched  its  situation,  was  a 
miniature  of  religious  humanity.  All  the  ways  that 
the  loyal  follow  lead  upward  to  the  realm  of  the 
spirit,  where  reason  is  at  once  the  overarching 
heaven  and  the  all-vitalising  devotion  which  binds 


294  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

every  loyal  individual  to  the  master  of  life.  But 
in  our  universe  the  one  demands  the  many.  The 
infinite  becomes  incarnate  through  the  finite.  The 
paths  that  lead  the  loyal  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
eternal  pass  for  our  vision,  with  manifold  crossings 
and  with  perplexing  wanderings,  through  the  wilder- 
ness of  this  present  world.  The  divine  life  is  won 
through  suffering.  And  religious  history  is  a  tale 
of  suffering — of  mutual  misunderstanding  amongst 
brethren  who  have  from  moment  to  moment  been 
able  to  remember  God  only  by  narrowly  misreading 
the  hearts  of  their  brethren.  The  diversity  of  spir- 
itual gifts  has  developed,  in  religious  history,  an 
endless  war  of  factions.  The  invisible  church  has 
frequently  come  to  consciousness  in  the  form  of 
sects  that  say :  "  Ours  alone  is  the  true  spiritual  gift. 
Through  our  triumph  alone  is  the  world  to  be  saved. 
Man  will  reach  salvation  only  when  our  own  Jerusa- 
lem is  the  universally  recognised  holy  city." 

Now  it  is  useless  to  reduce  the  many  to  the  one 
merely  by  wiping  out  the  many.  It  is  useless  to 
make  some  new  sect  whose  creed  shall  be  that  there 
are  to  be  no  sects.  The  unity  of  the  visible  church, 
under  any  one  creed,  or  with  any  one  settled  system 
of  religious  practices,  is  an  unattainable  and  undesir- 
able ideal.  The  varieties  of  religious  experience  in 
James's  sense  of  that  term  are  endless.  The  di- 
versity of  gifts  is  as  great  as  is  the  diversity  of 
strong  and  loyal  personalities.  What  St.  Paul  saw, 
in  the  miniature  case  presented  to  him  by  the  Co- 


Sources  of  Religious  Insight  295 

rinthian  church,  was  that  all  the  real  gifts,  and  all 
the  consequently  inevitable  differences  of  approach 
to  the  religious  problems,  and  all  the  differences  of 
individual  religious  insight  were  necessary  to  a 
wealthy  religious  life,  and  might  serve  the  unity 
of  the  spirit,  if  only  they  were  conceived  and  used 
subject  to  the  spiritual  gift  which  he  defined  as 
Charity. 

Now  the  Pauline  Charity  is  simply  that  form  of 
loyalty  which  should  characterise  a  company  of 
brethren  who  already  have  recognised  their  broth- 
erhood, who  consciously  know  that  their  cause  is 
one  and  that  the  spirit  which  they  serve  is  one.  For 
such  brethren,  loyalty  naturally  takes  the  form  of  a 
self-surrender  that  need  not  seek  its  own,  or  assert 
itself  vehemently,  because  the  visible  unity  of  the 
community  in  question  is  already  acknowledged  by 
all  the  faithful  present,  so  that  each  intends  to  edify, 
not  himself  alone,  but  his  brethren,  and  also  intends 
not  to  convert  his  brother  to  a  new  faith,  but  to  es- 
tablish him  in  a  faith  already  recognised  by  the  com- 
munity. Yet  since  the  Corinthians,  warring  over 
their  diversity  of  gifts,  had  come  to  lose  sight  of  the 
common  spirit,  Paul  simply  recalls  them  to  their 
flag,  by  his  poem  of  charity,  which  is  also  a  techni- 
cally true  statement  of  how  the  principle  of  loyalty 
applies  to  a  brotherhood  fully  conscious  of  its  com- 
mon aim. 

But  the  very  intimacy  of  the  Pauline  picture  of 
charity  makes  it  hard  to  apply  this  account  of  the 


296  Sources  of  Religious  Insight 

loyalty  that  should  reign  within  a  religious  family 
to  the  problems  of  a  world  where  faith  does  not 
understand  faith,  where  the  contrasts  of  opinion 
seem  to  the  men  in  question  to  exclude  community 
of  the  spirit,  where  the  fighting  blood  even  of  saintly 
souls  is  stirred  by  persecutions  or  heated  by  a  ha- 
tred of  seemingly  false  creeds.  And  Paul  himself 
could  not  speak  in  the  language  of  charity,  either 
when  he  referred  to  those  whom  he  called  "false 
brethren  "  or  characterised  the  Hellenic-Roman  spir- 
itual world  to  whose  thought  and  spirit  he  owed 
so  much.  As  the  Corinthians,  warring  over  the 
spiritual  gifts,  were  a  miniature  representation  of 
the  motives  that  have  led  to  religious  wars,  so  St. 
Paul's  own  failure  to  speak  with  charity  as  soon  as 
certain  matters  of  controversy  arose  in  his  mind, 
shows  in  miniature  the  difficulty  that  the  visible 
church,  in  all  its  forms,  has  had  to  unite  loyal  stren- 
uousness  of  devotion  to  the  truth  that  one  sees  with 
tolerance  for  the  faiths  whose  meaning  one  cannot 
understand. 

And  yet,  what  Paul  said  about  charity  must  be 
universalised  if  it  is  true.  When  we  universalise 
the  Pauline  Charity,  it  becomes  once  more  the  loy- 
alty that,  as  a  fact,  is  now  justified  in  seeking  her 
loyal  own;  but  that  still,  like  charity,  rejoices  in 
the  truth.  Such  loyalty  loves  loyalty  even  when 
race  or  creed  distinctions  make  it  hard  or  impossible 
for  us  to  feel  fond  of  the  persons  and  practices 
and  opinions  whereby  our  more  distant  brethren 


Sources  of  Religions  Insight  297 

embody  their  spiritual  gifts.  Such  loyalty  is  tol- 
erant. Tolerance  is  what  charity  becomes  when 
we  have  to  deal  with  those  whose  special  cause  we 
just  now  cannot  understand.  Loyalty  is  tolerant, 
not  as  if  truth  were  indifferent,  or  as  if  there  were 
no  contrast  between  worldliness  and  spirituality,  but 
is  tolerant  precisely  in  so  far  as  the  best  service  of 
loyalty  and  of  religion  and  of  the  unity  of  the 
spirit  consists  in  helping  our  brethren  not  to  our 
ouTi,  but  to  their  own.  Such  loyalty  implies  genuine 
faith  in  the  abiding  and  supreme  unity  of  the  spirit. 

Only  by  thus  universalising  the  doctrine  which 
Paul  preached  to  the  Corinthians  can  we  be  pre- 
pared to  use  to  the  full  this  crowning  source  of  in- 
sight— the  doctrine,  the  example,  the  life,  the  in- 
spiration, which  is  embodied  in  the  countless  forms 
and  expressions  of  the  invisible  church. 

The  work  of  the  invisible  church — it  is  just  that 
work  to  which  all  these  lectures  have  been  direct- 
ing your  attention.  The  sources  of  insight  are 
themselves  the  working  of  its  spirit  in  our  spirits. 

If  I  have  done  anything  (however  unworthy)  to 
open  the  minds  of  any  of  you  to  these  workings,  my 
fragmentary  efforts  will  not  have  been  in  vain.  I 
have  no  authority  to  determine  your  0)^ti  insight. 
Seek  insight  where  it  is  to  be  found. 


DATE  DUE 

Auc: 

)  ^  .C/  0 

SE 

m  JUL  26 

1976 

DEG2( 

^1988 

i 

I 

; 

niini 

3  1970  00765  2i 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  644  290    9 


